


Leaving Hell

by anr



Series: Leaving Hell + Home [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-10
Updated: 2002-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:23:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wishing can change things, but it doesn't make them better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunnydale

**Author's Note:**

> _The Wish_ (3x09)
> 
> "Lucky" (Bif Naked), "Refuse To Dance" (Celine Dion), "Bell Book And Candle".
> 
>   
> 

She has a headache; a skull-throbbing, head-splitting, God-she-wishes-it-would-just-go-away headache. THX versions of thunder-and-lightning are flashing behind her eyes, casting her world in flickering shades of white, then black, then white again. A world that's frequently plummeting into spotted grey and then rocketing back into too-sharp clarity the next; dizziness capturing her in a sickening thrall. Her limbs are all but buzzing from pins-and-needles, the sharp, stinging sensations painful and distracting. Sandpaper coats her tongue; the rough dryness causing her to cough weakly, again and again.

Coughing even now, she staggers awkwardly, desperately colliding her shoulder into a door frame as she pauses to catch her breath. Panting dryly leaves her doubled over, the grey spots behind her eyes swirling against the fabric of her sky blue dress. Her neck aches bitterly, the torn skin in desperate need of an antiseptic wash and bandage and her arm's not doing much better either. Already the flesh has darkened to a nasty red-brown shade, skin peeling back as it exposes a collection dry blisters.

She doesn't know who it was who left the incinerator door open and burning freely and she doesn't know who it was who left her lying next to it, arm pressed against the metal side. Doesn't know and doesn't really care. What she _does_ care about is staying conscious long enough to get the hell out of here. And if she can do that, if she can stay conscious and get out, _then_ she'll care. She'll care about the incinerator, she'll care about who dumped her there like she was yesterday's garbage, and she'll care a _lot_ about the rage she's gonna direct in their direction.

Because she is _not_ yesterday's garbage. She's Cordelia Chase. The best-ever thing to come out of Sunnydale. And right now...

... she's going to be sick.

  


* * *

  


Staggering again, with one arm wrapped around a bile-churning abdomen and a second hand holding the side of her neck. Sometime between exiting the school's basement and finding herself here in Giles' street, the wound had begun weeping again -- dribbling blood that will undoubtably stain her cashmere cardigan beyond repair.

Her memory is like swiss-cheese, full of holes, and even though she's knows that that's because of the blood loss it doesn't stop her from cursing the vampire who did this to her. Damn vamp's and their we-don't-care-about-your-accessorising-problems-after-we-bite-you mottos -- don't they know that chokers are _so_ last season?

Mind ablaze with the latest -- or rather, latest in the _real_ world's -- Gucci scarves that she's so going to be buying when she gets out of this twisted Never Never Land, it takes her a moment to realise that she's finally made it. A ragged exhale is torn from her throat and for a terrifying moment she thinks she might even fall to her knees and kiss the ground like some B-grade horror-flick actress who's just caught sight of the hunky hero who's come to save her.

Giles. Hunky hero. Her brow furrows and nose wrinkles in classic 'eww'-style and gratefully the knee-falling urge passes. Still staggering -- but staggering with a goal in sight so that's okay -- she all but collapses against the heavy wooden front door, cheek pressed against the rough surface. Sanctuary. Finally. She prays -- yes, _prays_ \-- that she's not gonna faint again. She's already done the passed-out, swooned-right-over trick twice since leaving the high school and she doesn't want to do it again. Not only is it dangerous, it's tacky.

A loud crash pierces through her relief and she jerks away from the door instinctively, her oven-baked arm scraping across the wood by accident. Hissing in pain she takes a step to the side, peering in through the window cautiously. For a moment she sees what she wants to see -- Giles standing near a wall, a lamp smashed on the ground, the Librarian's clumsiness having gotten the better of him once again. Then she sees what she doesn't want to see -- Giles against the wall, near a smashed lamp, and Anya _holding_ him there. Demon-faced, bad-wish-granting, apparently-very-strong-and-bad-ass-Anya.

For not the first time in her life, she wishes for better friends.

Backing away, she trips over a potted plant, landing awkwardly. Tears smart in her eyes and she sniffles. It's just not fair. Not fair at all. She'd come here for help, for saving, and now it's all going bad. Again. Her arm hurts and her neck hurts -- Xander, it was Xander who bit her! -- and her heart hurts and --

\-- there's another crash from inside the apartment --

\-- and she clambers to her feet in time to see Anya -- horrible, no-friend-of-hers-now, demonic Anya -- standing over the fallen body of Giles. Giles who is now hurt too. She sniffles again. Hurt and _dead_ and she is _so_ sick of this place already.

"I wish Buffy Summers _had_ come to Sunnydale," she whispers under her breath, the sandpaper in her mouth causing the words to rasp against her teeth. Speech has never seemed so painful but the wish makes her feel just a little bit better. Not a lot -- it's gonna take so much more than a handful of words to make her feel better now -- but a little bit.

And right now, that little bit is everything.

  


* * *

  


It takes her the rest of the night to get home. She'd fainted again, somewhere near High Street, and the keeling-over thing is so getting tired. Or maybe that's just her. God knows she'd love to go to sleep.

Dawn's spilling over the horizon, dazzling her with its brightness as she all but crawls up the curving driveway and across the threshold of her home. As the double doors thud shut behind her, a choked cry wrestles free from her throat and at its exclamation, she realises that she's still saying her wish. Or trying to. As has been, it seems, since she left Giles' apartment.

"I wish... Buffy Summers... _had_... come to Sunny... dale."

The gasped utterance, again, makes her feel that little bit better and she sinks to the floor. Everything is still hurting and she's just gonna lie here and cry and wait for one of the help to find her. They'll find her and then everything will be better again.

They'll call a doctor and get her arm and neck all healed. They'll call her father back from his business trip and he'll buy her something nice and expensive to make her feel happy again. They'll make her something to eat and drink and maybe they'll even call the retreat that her mom's gone to and her mom will come back -- her Epstein-Barr all cured -- and her mom will organise a nice trip to Aspen or the Bahamas or somewhere equally exclusive and nice for her.

Everything will be better again.

It has to be.

  


* * *

  


She doesn't know how long she lies there, curled on the not-really-polished floorboards in the foyer, crying and waiting for salvation. She watches the shadows shorten as the sun continues to rise and eventually it sinks in that no-one's coming. No maid, no Daddy, no Mommy. No freshly squeezed orange juice or blue box from Tiffany's or airplane tickets to Hawaii.

Nothing's getting better. Again.

In a daze -- pain, dizziness, disbelief -- she gets to her feet and slowly makes her way through the house. On the kitchen counter there's a sheet of paper, a note carefully transcribed in Lucy's -- the housekeeper's -- precise printing. A reminder that Lucy will not be in tomorrow -- which would now be today -- as she has a family funeral to attend. And as she stands there, the sheet of paper drifting absently back onto the counter top, she can almost hear Lucy telling her this yesterday morning before she'd left for school. Of course, she's sure that Lucy had said it was a family _christening_ she was going to, not a _funeral_ , but the affidavit before her says otherwise.

Pins-and-needles return to accompany the chilled gooseflesh that's swiftly covering her arms and legs and as she hugs herself, she realises that she needs food. Blood replacing food. She took Home Ecc -- surely they covered this topic? What with the school being on the Hellmouth and all.

Opening the fridge she grabs a container of cottage cheese, some celery, and a carafe of orange juice -- some vitamin c couldn't hurt, right? -- and heads for the stairs. She has to sit down before she even gets halfway up but that's okay; that gives her a chance to drink some of the OJ and thereby lighten her load.

She's just tired, that's all. Tired and running a few quarts closer to zero than she knows is healthy. Damn Xander. First he cheats on her, now this. Her fist slams into the marble banister of the staircase. It's just not _fair_.

The burst of petulant -- but justified, damnit -- rage helps. It helps her to get to her feet again, and to get moving once more, and before long she's in her bedroom. Her safe, expensively designed and decorated, no-vamp-ex-boyfriends-in-here bedroom.

Which just happens to reside over the Hellmouth.

The not-so-sudden but suddenly- _really_ -terrifying realisation causes her to stumble back against the doorjamb. She lives in Sunnydale. A Sunnydale that has given rise to the control of vampires. Forget about Xander -- and Willow! Willow bit her too! -- being a vampire, forget about this being a Buffy-free-zone -- that's just icing on the cake. The cake itself is way more freaky. Sunnydale is now -- really and truly -- Sunny _hell_. Home to vampires and demons and monsters-that-should-really-stay-hidden-underneath-beds.

Her home. Their home.

She pushes herself away from the door, dumping her small food cache on the bed and stumbling into the ensuite. The bathtub has never looked more inviting but she RSVPs it a polite but firm unacceptance as she turns on the shower, strips, and plunges herself under the spray.

Their home. Her home.

The bites on her neck start bleeding again as the water pressure massages the torn flesh and a couple of the blisters on her arm crack and split from the same. She ignores them and she ignores their pain. She has to think, she has to plan... she has to _live_.

Her home.

And living on a Hellmouth has suddenly become a huge gamble. One that she's not really sure she can even participate in, let alone consider betting on. She's rich, not stupid, and the odds are so not in her favour. Her former-self -- in this reality -- has no doubt stayed here because they, she, doesn't know any better but she _does_ know better. She's lived in a better world. A world where, granted, her popularity and her heart were coming out with the short end of the stake, but still a world where she was reasonably safe. This world is for the reasonably _dead_.

Their home.

She shuts off the water and leans her forehead against the cool, wet tiles.

"They can have it."

  


* * *

  


Noon has come and gone before she's on the road and that's just not good. Now that she's made the decision to relocate she wants to be gone already. Relocated into a nice hotel with bellhops and valet and room service and big, big windows that let in heaps of sunlight. And she wants this relocation to happen before another night can arrive.

Is that too much to ask?

Her father's BMW cuts a mostly quiet path through the mostly deserted streets and that's a good thing. If what the groundskeeper said was true -- that 'students' aren't allowed to drive -- then the last thing she needs is to be pulled over before she can even leave the city limits.

Sunlight glares off the fenders of abandoned vehicles in the street and she readjusts the sunglasses she's wearing to cover the black circles under her eyes. Her hair is pulled back into a tight but flattering braid, a high-necked, long-sleeved, skin-tight and all-black -- chic, if depressing in colour -- jersey covering the white bandages on her neck and arm, and designer -- black again, of course -- jeans are clinging to her legs. She's even wearing sensible shoes. Three-hundred dollar shoes, yes, but sensible, black-leather, less-than-two-inch-heeled shoes nonetheless. Her whole outfit screams Faith-with-a-credit-card, but she's confident that she's more Hepburn than Goth.

She's almost free of Main Street when she catches sight of a slightly familiar form. Blood streaming from a gash on his forehead, one shoe missing -- what's up with that? -- and shirt torn, the guy is a walking wreck. For a moment she considers flooring the accelerator, peeling away from him and the oh-so-blood-red-vivid reminder of why she's leaving this place as fast as she can. Considers it, savours the idea, and then slams on the brakes as she comes parallel with his stumbling form. Her suitcases in the trunk thud against each other and her handbag on the backseat shifts dangerously close to the edge of the upholstery.

The box on the passenger-seat beside her thankfully stays still, its contents untroubled by her sudden stop. Crosses, vials of holy water, even some garlic -- her other-reality-self may have been stupid enough to live here, but apparently she was smart enough to keep herself somewhat protected.

She doesn't roll down the window -- sunlight or no sunlight, she's not giving anyone or anything a chance to get in this car -- but she does crack it just a little as she honks the horn so that the bleeding figure turns her way. Eyes widen comically in her direction and she frowns back at them through the darkly tinted windows.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Larry -- gay Larry, who's going to die at Graduation when the Mayor turns into a snake but she doesn't know this because it hasn't happened yet, and now _won't_ happen, not in this reality, because the Master has already ascended to the surface and upstaged the Mayor -- gapes at her through the sliver of open window, blood trickling down his cheek as he comes closer to her car. "Cor-cordelia?"

"Bingo," she quips lightly, fingers tight on the steering wheel.

"But you're dead!" The jock stutters, "you're dead!"

She frowns some more. "No I'm not."

"Yes you are." A trace of fear steals across his features. "You _were_."

A hand leaves the steering wheel to caress the jersey-covered bandages on her neck and realisation dawns. "You did it. You dumped me there." She looks at him through car window. "You left me to _burn_?" Anger rages through her tone.

"Yes! I mean, we were going to... but then we heard something, and Oz said we should just leave you and get back to the Library, and then Giles -- "

"Giles is dead," she mutters vaguely, mind churning with images of Oz. Oz who, sort of, is her friend. Oz who, like her, had been cheated on. Oz who, like Larry here, had tried to incinerate her. "Where's Oz?"

"But... it's daytime... it's sunlight... so you can't..."

Impatience rises. "Look, retard, I'm alive." Her hand delves into the box beside her, removing a cross which she grips tightly in her hand and waves next to the glass. "See, no sizzle-fest."

"Oh. Okay." The jock blinks a little. "That's good then."

"Just super," she agrees. "Where's Oz? I need to see him." Which is true in a way she's only just realised. If she's gonna survive in this new big-bad world of monsters then she's gonna need some protection. And Oz is, was -- sort of -- her friend, and more importantly, he's a werewolf. So she needs to grab Oz and pull him into the car and take him with her. Werewolf protection against vampire's -- it could work. She has a Prada belt that could act as a leash... werewolves can be trained, right?

She's interrupted from this train of thought by Larry shaking his bleeding head, sorrow on his features. "Oz is dead."

"Dead?"

"Yeah. Vamp's got him."

"Oh."

A silence develops between the two high schoolers and she looks at the digital-clock on her dashboard. Two-thirteen-pm. Time to go. Larry must see her gaze.

"You leaving town?"

She nods, eyes caught now on the idling RPM gauge.

"Good idea. I'm thinking about doing the same, now that that Slayer-chick's dead and all."

Her gaze ricochets to Larry's. "Buffy? Buffy's here?"

"That her name? Blonde chick, handy with a stake?" She nods. "Yeah, she was here. Killed a heap of vamps too. She certainly had the moves."

Past tense; she closes her eyes. "She died?"

"Master got her. Right after she staked Harris' dead butt."

"Xander," she whispers, throat dry.

"Yeah. The factory was quite the stake-fest. I dusted a couple myself before I ran." The jock looks ashamed. "I probably should of stayed and fought some more but after Oz checked out, well, he'd gotten that Willow vamp before he went and there was really only the Master and a couple of freshly-turned vampires left... the few people still alive were heading for the hills so I..."

"You did the right thing," she murmurs absently, not knowing or even caring if she really means that.

"Maybe."

Another silence deepens and after a moment Larry lightly slaps the roof of her car.

"Glad you're okay, Chase." A quick, tight and slightly embarrassed smile is sent her way. "Sorry 'bout the whole disposing of your body thing."

She waves an absent hand, dismissing the apology like she's dismissed a hundred other things, people, in her life. "No big." And it's not. Big is Buffy dead and Giles and Oz and Xander and Willow all gone. The entire group. Finito. _That's_ big.

"Yeah, well, see ya round." With a final salute, Larry walks away, head downcast and forehead bleeding, one shoe still missing and his shirt torn. The lone white-hat survivor of a massacre that should never have happened in a reality that should never be. 

"Yeah," she mutters softly. "See ya."

She won't, of course. She's out of here. A designer bat, straight out of Sunnyhell. She looks at the clock. Two-nineteen-pm.

Time to go.

  


* * *

  


This time she actually makes it out of Main Street and onto the Boulevard before slamming on the brakes again. The box beside her slip-slides on the seat and she winces as some of the holy water vials clink against each other. A quick perusal reveals none broken -- thank God -- and she berates herself furiously about her suddenly dubious driving abilities.

Speaking of, she thinks then, why _did_ I just stop?

Looking up, she sees -- delayed emotions of shock, fear, anger flooding her nervous system -- a small child standing no more than a foot away from her fender. A child she had _almost_ run down. "Ohgod..." The urge to hyperventilate rises but before she can give her body leave to panic, the child suddenly bolts, heading off down the alley.

"Hey!"

Without even thinking she turns off the ignition, heartbeat racing triple-time as she electronically locks and leaves her car in the street, racing after this mysterious urchin who, a moment ago, had almost redecorated the front of her car with a kid-shaped dent.

"Wait a minute!"

The alley, bathed in patches of sunlight and even larger patches of shadow, is littered with garbage but nothing big enough to hide a child. A child who has suddenly _vanished_ into thin -- she skids to a stop and turns in a circle, confused -- vanished through the still swinging metal door of that building. Bewilderment passes and she dashes forward again, catching the door before it can stop banging shut and simply BE shut and following the errant child.

Inside it's dark, all the windows blacked out and boarded up, and adrenaline changes sources. No longer shock-induced, the epinephrine fuelling her body now is completely and utterly fear-driven. She's in the Bronze. Oh shit.

Feet cased in lead -- instead of three-hundred-dollar designer leather boots -- keep her standing in the side entrance to the club, eyes wide as she stares at the trashed hang-out. Cages dangle from huge hooks in the ceiling, barbed wire wrapped around one of the posts for the upper floor. A foul, deathy smell hovers in the air with the fading remnants of cheap perfume and bad cologne and her nose wrinkles automatically. Geez, shop at Elizabeth Arden already.

What had Harmony said about the Bronze in this reality?

"Nothing," she whispers sotto voce, "Harmony said nothing, only that I shouldn't joke about the Bronze and that Willow and Xander were dead. And she said nothing because two seconds later she was out the high school doors and running for home."

Something crashes across the room and she bites out a strangled scream, eyes just catching a flash of disappearing blue -- was that the shirt the kid had been wearing? -- and she realises that a chair's been knocked over. Oxygen suddenly scarce, she pants a little, one hand on her heart which is thundering so loudly in her chest that she can barely hear herself think.

Run. Get the hell out of here. Run, run, RUN. When Harmony said nothing what she probably _meant_ to say was that the Bronze is now the Master's lair. The vampire's playpen. Home to a lot of bad things which will really, really hurt her if she's found here. Her car-keys cut into her palm and she stares down at them, wide-eyed. Just run, Chase, she tells herself firmly. Turn around, leave, run back to your car with your box of crosses and holy water and let this demon-infested town _rot_.

A small thud makes her jump but the childish and definitely infantile "ow!" that follows it causes her to lurch forward without thinking, feet almost tripping over themselves as she once again tears blindly after this stupid kid. This kid who's probably gonna get her killed. Act I -- the street. Act II -- the lair.

Backstage and down the staff-only stairs, her breathing harsh as she moves quickly. Downstairs is even more decrepit than up and she only just manages to withhold a squeal of disgust as a rat crosses the hallway ahead of her. She stops for just a moment, dizzy, and takes a deep breath. Spots dance behind her eyes and she knows that she can't do this, not really. She doesn't have the energy. The food she'd found in her kitchen and the vitamin tablets she found in the pantry have helped to pick her up a little, helped to get some iron back in her system, but it's not enough. In all honesty, she probably needs a transfusion of some kind. A yucky needles-and-all blood pick-me-up. And... she's so not gonna think about blood while standing in a vampire's nest.

The sound of glass breaking propels her forward regardless of common sense and she bursts into a room just in time to see kid-sized Nike's disappearing out of a window, the kid having chosen to take the next Act back to the streets. Angry -- both at herself for risking her life to save the child and at the child in question for risking its own in the first place -- she stands there for a moment, hands on hips and features frowning. Damnit!

With an exhale that's more fury than relief -- damn kid almost got her killed and didn't even let her save them! -- she turns to leave. At least, she tries to reassure herself, the Master isn't here. Larry said that he left the Master in a factory and the only factories she knows of are on the other side of town.

She's barely exited the room when she hears a chink-chink sound of metal on metal and her breathing catches. Ohgod -- she's not alone. The corridor stretches before her -- to her right, freedom; a path to upstairs. To her left, another staircase heading down into unknown horrors and terrors and --

"Bu-buffy?"

\-- her mouth drops open in shock. "Angel?" she whispers, body trembling as she darts to the left, stumbling down the stairs and bursting out into a room with a cage a second later. "Angel!"

Her knee bangs against a discarded... something... but she ignores the brief flare of pain, all but skidding into the cage itself and dropping down beside the chained vampire. Angel, his chest a distorted Picasso of burns and gashes, flinches away from her, eyes narrowing.

"Who are you?"

She ignores the question, eyes flicking over his chest, tongue clucking an absent disapproval. "These look nasty," she murmurs, withholding a disgusted 'eww' as she raises her gaze to his. "Angel, can you walk?"

"Who are you?" he repeats. "How do you know my name?" He growls out the questions and, for the first time, it crosses her mind that Angel might not be Angel.

She rocks back on her heels, fearful curiosity overpowering the previous display of concern. "I'm Cordelia," she snaps regally, automatically, following with, "who the hell are you?"

The vampire looks at her in sudden confusion. "What do you mean 'who am I'? You just..."

"Just answer the question, Angel," she responds sharply, "or should I say," an eyebrow arches, "Angelus?"

The vampire looks dumbfounded. "How did you... I've never told..." With wide eyes, he swallows hard. "Angel, my name is Angel."

She nods with relief, purpose fuelling her motions once again as she leans closer. A Vampire with a Soul -- so much better than a maybe-trained werewolf. Curious hands reach above his head to grip the chains and give an experimental yank. Nothing happens. "Damn," she mutters, looking down into his wide-eyed gaze. "How's your vamp-strength?"

He shakes his head automatically. "I've tried before... I can't break them." She frowns, eyeballing the chains distastefully. "You... you know I'm a vampire?"

She rolls her eyes automatically. "Well, duh. Of course I do."

"But you're human."

"Yes."

"So why aren't you running away?"

A fresh frown in place, she finally leaves the unyankable chains alone. Leaning back, she looks at him properly, a touch of bewilderment to her voice. "Why on earth would I do that? You have a soul."

"Well, yes, but..."

"But what?" she asks, exasperated now. Twenty questions would be fine if it were helping them get out of here. But this is just --

"But how do _you_ know that?"

They've never met. Finally the penny drops. In this reality, she and Angel have never met. She's never seen him in a crowded Bronze and made a self-assured comment about oxygen and ambulances. He's never driven home with her after an attack of zombie-hands. She's never seen him evil and he's never seen her date Xander. A clean slate -- huh.

"Long story," she glosses quickly. "Look, we've got to get out of here. Do you know where they keep the keys for these things?"

He shakes his head, confusion still present on his features. "Not here," he answers unhelpfully and she sighs, standing and looking around determinedly. With slow, obviously painful, motions, the vampire also starts to rise and she helps him without thinking, her good arm tightening around his waist to keep him steady.

He flinches in surprise and when she looks up at him, he sends her a weird look. "I don't understand... why you're doing this?" he asks and she smiles.

"If you could look in a mirror, you'd know why," she answers absently, flirtation automatically kicking in, and when they both glance at his chest, she shrugs. "Well, not right now -- obviously. But on a good day..." her voice trails off as she spies a collection of rusted axes and the like near the wall opposite the cage. "Hold that thought," she mutters and she leaves him standing gingerly as she dashes across the room, selecting the largest and unrustiest one she can find.

"Here," she says, handing it to him.

He stares at it, then her, eyebrows raised.

Rolling her eyes, she puts her hands on her hips. "Look, I'm no Kate Winslet alright? A, that was a movie, and B, the only thing she had to worry about was encroaching hypothermia. I'm seeing spots and am so not about to get rust stains on my manicure. Just do your vampy super-strength thing already and break the chains so we can get the hell out of here."

When he just keeps staring at her, she exhales sharply in exasperation.

"What? In case you haven't been keeping up with current events, Soul-boy, I'm sort of waiting here!"

"Who _are_ you?"

A grin emerges, the curiosity and wonder in his voice amusing. "Cordelia Chase."

She gestures to the chains.

"Now break."

  


* * *

  


It takes Angel at least four tries to break the chains holding him to the wall -- an easy fifteen minutes or so -- and then there's another delay -- ten minutes worth -- as the two of them stumble upstairs and into the Bronze. Her bad arm and blood loss, Angel's obviously weak condition -- like a couple of war-torn province refugees they make their way to the side door she'd entered through. Once there, however, Angel balks.

"What now?" she snaps impatiently, her head spinning as another headache asserts itself in her skull.

"Daylight," the vampire responds a little sharply himself, "I can't go out in the sun."

"Who's asking you to?" When he looks at her, she rolls her eyes. "The alley is in shadows and my car has tinted windows but if it makes you feel any better," spying a discarded blanket in the corner of the entrance, she grabs it and thrusts it into his hands, "then here -- you're very own sunscreen. SPF-fabric."

Without saying a word, he takes the blanket.

She rolls her eyes again at his silence, pulling open the door and stepping outside. As she heads towards the car -- which _is_ in sunlight and will have to be moved closer to the alley -- she's gratified to hear him also exiting the Bronze. Obliquely glancing back, she sees the vampire following at a more cautious rate, all but clinging to the shadow-bathed building wall.

Depressing the unlock button on her car keys and throws herself into the drivers seat, banging her bad arm in the process. Tears smart in her eyes, making her vision swim, and with a curse towards the pain she starts the engine, cursing even more when she sees the past three-pm time on the dashboard clock. Driving a little erratically in her pain and frustration and anger, she jerks the car to a stop at the alley entrance, leaning over to open the door for Angel.

As she pulls back she shifts her box of vampire protection to the backseat and gestures that he get in. He pauses, still clinging to the shadows.

"Tinted windows?" he asks, and she nods.

"The darkest money can buy and the state will legally allow," she responds truthfully.

Still he hesitates and she sighs tiredly.

"Look, Angel, I know it's still sunny out and for you that's a bad thing. But... for me it's a good thing and I really don't want to have to spend the night in this town." She arches an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"No."

"So get in."

He looks up and down the brightly lit street, as if searching for something, or someone. "Buffy -- she was here."

Surprise flits across her features, and it's tempting to say 'of course she was', but she schools both the expression and the words back with difficulty. "Buffy... came to see you?" she asks hesitantly.

Angel nods and then shakes his head. "She was looking for the Master... I offered to help her but..."

"But what?"

"Her cross... I pulled away..." Angel's voice trails away but that doesn't matter. She can picture what happened. Buffy leaning up against Angel, all close and personal and her breasts pushed up against his chest, smiling coyly as she dangled a cross necklace in his face. "I tried to... she wouldn't..."

"The Vampire Slayer didn't want to pal around with a vampire?" she summarises, ignoring Angel's suddenly surprised again look as she muses, "well, _that's_ a shocker."

"I should go find her, help her..."

"Red light, Soul-boy," she restrains him sadly.

"What? Why?"

"Buffy's dead."

  


* * *

  



	2. Oxnard

It's hard to tell what's worse on her headache -- the sharp, piercing glare of the setting sun or the bone-aching, arm-stinging fatigue that's crashing against her consciousness like waves on a beach. She's been awake for well over twenty-four hours now -- bouts of unconsciousness not included -- and with a nice little checklist of injuries to add to that, she's feeling a _lot_ less than fresh.

A passing sign informs her that Los Angeles is still a way to go and she yawns loudly, casting a dour look at the vampire asleep in the passenger seat. Slumber has apparently done what she could not -- convinced him that the blanket is unnecessary with the car's tinted windows -- and the fabric lies pooled on his lap.

Focusing on the road once again, she blinks rapidly, trying to stay awake. Miles to go before you sleep, Chase, she reminds herself, yawning again despite her best efforts. Leaning forward, she flicks on the radio, hitting the auto-tune button. Almost instantly it finds a station, a rhythmic beat and despairing lyrics pouring out of the car's speakers.

"... time to let you know, time to sit here and say, I know we are, we are the lucky ones..."

She scoffs tiredly at the radio, a hand rising to gingerly touch her neck. "Yeah, sure," she remarks under her breath, a little sarcastically, a little not. "Lucky." She refuses to look at her sleeping companion.

"... we are the lucky ones, dear..."

  


* * *

  


Five songs, a handful of commercials and a news broadcast later, she's forced to admit defeat. Pulling into a supermarket parking lot she switches off the ignition and stares at Angel. Still asleep, the man -- vampire -- doesn't even twitch. Well "bully for" him, she half thinks, half utters, grabbing her purse and exiting the car, locking him in.

Inside the store she grabs a hand basket automatically, traipsing the aisles without caring much about what she tosses into it. Some more bandages and burn cream, a large bottle of aspirin and antiseptic lotion... some milk and coffee... a cheap cotton-blend t-shirt -- she shudders on his behalf at this subspecies of clothing -- and some male toiletries... another bottle of aspirin and the latest Vogue magazine -- not French, but she's willing to let that slide this once -- and eventually she heads to the deli section.

She's expecting a Spanish Inquisition when she requests a couple of containers of fresh pigs blood from the paper-crowned assistant but the man doesn't even blink as he disappears out back and then returns a moment later to hand her a plastic bag containing the bloody containers. Inclining her head in a thank you -- the most her body will allow in its exhausted state -- she promptly heads to the checkout and a few minutes later, is back at the car. Dumping the grocery bags in the backseat, she climbs into the drivers seat and starts the engine.

Fifteen minutes later she's parked once more, a motel key firmly clutched in one hand as her dreams of valets and room service and the Ritz evaporate from the other.

"Maybe tomorrow night," she mumbles tiredly and, as she cuts the ignition for the last time that night, Angel finally stirs.

"Wh-where are we?" he asks curiously, fatigue clinging to his voice and making his words rasp a little as he blinks at the neon lights that border the parking lot.

"Oxnard."

"We're stopping?"

"Duh," is all she can manage in response and she exits the car wearily, retrieving her handbag and the groceries. Tossing him her car keys, she points to the trunk. "My bags," she orders absently and he's either too surprised or too polite to decline because he follows her direction mutely.

Together they enter the room and she heads straight to the kitchenette area, dumping the bag of food-groceries into the little mini-bar without even unpacking it, placing the other non-food-groceries bag on the counter. When she turns around, Angel's standing near the door, her suitcases neatly stacked under the window beside him.

"Look," she starts, heading over to the bed and sitting down with a grateful sigh, "I know you've got questions, and maybe I have the answers -- which, if I do, will certainly make things a lot easier -- but right now I need to sleep."

Twisting, she crawls over the covers, head descending to the pillows with another sigh of relief. Focusing on him more than a little blearily, she offers a half-smile.

"For what it's worth, Angel," she murmurs softly, "it's good to see you again."

Before he can reply, she's sound asleep.

  


* * *

  


She awakes only once during the night, eyes flickering open to locate her -- geez, possessive much already? -- vampire. He's sitting in front of the door -- or rather, in the corner between the door and side wall -- with his knees to his chest and his chin resting on folded arms.

Visual confirmation achieved, her eyes drift shut again, senses still leaden with fatigue. She floats back into slumber with one final thought, one final observation.

Her vampire's crying.

  


* * *

  


In the end she sleeps for almost sixteen hours. The night has passed in its entirety, as has the following morning, and now early-afternoon sunlight streams through the curtains. For a moment she can only blink at them, mind trying to process why it is her silk drapes have unexpectedly de-evolved into faded cotton, and then the jigsaw starts to piece itself together once again.

She made a wish. Reality changed. Everyone died. She fled.

Cordelia Chase -- destroyer of worlds.

She swallows hard, throat rasping as the lump residing there swells. Two tears, one for each eye, form and brim; spilling over to stain her cheeks. She allows them free reign and only when their paths have dried, the salty moisture absorbed into her skin, does she exhale slowly and clear her emotions back to a blank page.

A clean slate.

"Angel!" she exclaims suddenly, bolting upright on the bed. Her arm protests immediately, neck twinging so the pain won't feel lonely.

Fearfully she stares at the pool of sunshine that's creeping under the door next to where he'd been sitting, at the daylight ribboning from the open curtains to curl around her kneeling form on the bed.

Her heart pounding yet again, she draws in a ragged breath. "Angel?" she whispers brokenly, eyes searching the room. There's no dust on the floor, no pile of ashes, but the terror refuses to abate. There's a small ensuite attached to the room but the door's open, sunlight catching it and holding it vampire-free.

A sudden, even more terrifying, thought occurs then. "Car," she breathes out, all but falling off the bed as she dashes to the window, nerveless fingers parting the dirty lace inner-drapes. Please don't let him have stolen her car, please let it still be there, she prays desperately. Her eyes adjust slowly to the fender glares coming from the parking lot but relief flash-floods through her when she realises that the worst glare-offender is coming from her own vehicle.

Pushing away from the window, she staggers back towards the bed, throwing herself down onto the rumpled covers. "Damnit Angel," she mutters angrily, fearfully, "where the _hell_ have you gone?"

Thumping a pillow with her fist, she inadvertently knocks a second one into the illiberal crevice between the far wall and the bed. With an exasperated, self-disgusted noise, she rolls over, reaching for it. Great. As if the bedding in this room wasn't already unsanitary enough. Her fingers search blindly, caressing cool flesh and then semi-soft faux-feather-filled fabric. Gripping the pillow, she starts to pull it up only to freeze -- oh for crying out loud!

Shifting quickly, she leans over the edge of the bed, staring down at a once again sleeping vampire. A relieved smile tugs at the corners of her mouth -- he's not dust and he's not gone -- before mutating into a roll of her eyes.

Sitting up on the bed, she surveys the sunny room and the one completely dark section that he's managed to find. "Geez, Angel -- male logic much?" Clambering off the bed she again heads for the window, finally closing the curtains. "Guess that was just too difficult for you, huh?"

The vampire, of course, makes no response; his body curled tightly into the narrow fissure of bed and wall. With a final, exasperatedly-amused look in his general direction, she heads towards the tiny bathroom, shaking her head.

"Men!"

  


* * *

  


The motel's hot water cuts out after a measly ten minutes, leaving her clean but not refreshed and she emerges from the tile-steamed chamber with a frown firmly etched across her features. Heading straight to her suitcases she searches quickly, eventually substituting the threadbare -- and way icky -- courtesy bath-towel for designer terry-towelling. Standing, she turns around and promptly squeals; her hand rising to slap across her mouth and silence the noise a split-second later.

Glaring, she exhales sharply, dropping the hand on her mouth so that it presses against her chest. "Geez, Angel! Lurk much?"

As she stares across the room at him, the vampire still in his dark little corner but now standing and awake, it occurs to her that her vocabulary is rapidly deteriorating to a standard refrain of 'geez Angel' and 'blah blah much'.

"You... you closed the curtains."

The hesitant, slightly nervous statement about the excruciatingly obvious is somewhat surprising. "Well, duh. Of course I did." Wrapping the discarded towel around her neck she absently starts to dry her hair. "What? You think I'd bring you with me this far only to have housekeeping vacuum up your ashes when I leave? Please!"

He doesn't say anything, just stares at her, an unreadable expression on his face. Hands fidget with the edges of his shirt and she frowns as she steps closer, remembering the wounds on his chest. "We should get you cleaned up," she muses, reaching for him.

He flinches away, back thudding against the wall, and she freezes.

"O-kay," a touch of surprise -- and maybe hurt -- coats her tone and she drops her hand. "You've a no touchy zone now -- check." Stepping back, she looks around the room briefly. "So, um, okay, why..." Brightening, she gestures towards the bathroom. "Why don't _you_ go get cleaned up then, hmm?"

He stares at her, and she stares right back at him; an encouraging, nothing-to-fear-or-worry-about-here smile on her face. When he still doesn't move, the smile cracks and falls. Oh for crying out loud!

"Shower. You. Now." she orders instead, pointing firmly.

Angel flinches at the suddenly sharp tone now coating her voice but her features are resolute. Body tense and eyes darkening, he edges out from behind the bed, countenance showing obvious reluctance to obey her. Despite this, however, silently she watches his slow and cautious progress; arms folding across her chest. When he inches into the bathroom and shuts the door, the flimsy lock engaging almost instantaneously, she releases a breath she hadn't even known she was holding.

Oh yeah, _her_ life's not getting complicated. Not getting complicated at all.

  


* * *

  


The music pounds within her flesh; a lyrical substitute for blood flowing through her veins. With each throbbing cadence her heart offers a muted echo, arteries pulsing a thrumming resound. Smoke curls around her body, ribboning her flesh with tendrils of silver. Every twist of vapour causes her eyes shutter, hazing her vision into shadows.

"... maybe I was just an innocent but I confess, I never even knew the song the orchestra was playing..."

Slender fingers flutter against her form, slipping and sliding over her abdomen, her hips, her breasts. Hands carve a self-portrait, the willing canvass her own skin, and she arches her neck, drawing her hands up the smoothness of her throat. Tumbling chestnut locks float about her features, lips curved in reposeful joy.

"... did you think I'd want to toe the line, well now the line is broken..."

Hips sway. Legs glide. Arms rise. Languorously slow and sexy, her breath catches and breaks and falls as she moves and dances and lives. Her flesh is alive, skin electrified as the music flows around and through her. Silver wreaths cloud her senses, billowing a smoke-screen of unreality.

"... you said 'you're such a pretty thing, you could make a mark..."

A delicious embrace as arms suddenly slide around her waist, drawing her near. Her arms rise to languidly drape over broad shoulders, hips grinding a luxurious rhythm. Soft, sensuous, seductive. Her lips trace silent epithets against a silken torso as fingers splay across her lower back, tugging her closer.

"... I'll teach you all the steps you'll need, guide you through the dark..."

Lips smooth over cool flesh, eliciting gossamer threads of recognition. Guided purposefully, her back arches as her body bends and dips; her leg raises to curl around a strong thigh and swaying hip on her gradual return to verticality.

"... look back in sorrow, I won't be there'..."

Fingertips trail across her features, sweeping strands of hair away from her neck. A honeyed mouth follows their path, tasting the fingerprint path, licking the whorls of identity from her flesh. Breathy moans escape parched lips, her head tilting in silent invitation for further discovery. Her collarbone vibrates with every stroke of his tongue on her skin.

"... refuse to dance..."

Her descent so sweet, her fall completely beguiled, the piercing doesn't even register. Fangs sink deep within the soft flesh of her neck and yet she just sighs, fingers tightening in grip as she floats in a deliciously painful embrace. Softly, sweetly, ever-so-slowly... sinking and falling and draining... the music throbs around her; heart pounding, pounding, pound --

  


* * *

  


With a choked sob she awakes.

Fingers press against the bandages on her neck; mind picturing the twin puncture marks, the frayed edges of flesh. Vestiges of her dream play across her consciousness, unable to fade away, the curse of honesty keeping the image fresh. Pain radiates softly under her fingertips; she knows her nightmare is justified.

She's trembling, limbs alive with emotion. Taking a deep breath she exhales slowly, body rising and twisting until she's upright on the bed, knees digging into her chin. She blinks once, twice, and then sighs softly. She doesn't even remember falling asleep.

As reality -- what _is_ reality these days? -- gradually reasserts itself, she glances around the room. Her vampire is again missing but with the bathroom door still closed she's pretty confident this time in regards to his location. With movements only slightly dulled from sleep she clambers off the bed, absently straightening and retying her bathrobe, heading towards the ensuite door.

Rapping on the plywood surface, she leans in, voice somewhat lethargic. "Angel?"

As she waits for a response, her gaze rests on the curtained window, the lack of smothered illumination informing her that day has surrendered to night. Great. Just freaking fantastic. She had planned for LA tonight, for the Waldorf and a luxury suite. Instead she's been given a rat-trap encore. Lucky her.

She knocks again. "Everything copasetic in there?"

Another burst of silence.

"Angel?"

When there's still no response she steps back slightly, hand descending to rattle the doorhandle. The interior lock keeps the door closed and with a slight shrug she takes a breath. Stepping forward sharply, hip angled just right, she jolts the door -- the mostly-decorative mechanism snapping audibly. With a pleased smile on her features she rubs her side absently, cautiously opening the door and sticking her head inside.

"Angel?"

Nothing lunges... or growls... or tries to bite her during the tentative entrance and after a split-second of last-minute hesitation she pushes the door all the way open.

Instantly she's crouched on the tiled floor, hands hovering over a pants-only clothed vampire. He's half-sitting, half-lying beside the cracked vanity, eyes closed and chest unmoving. It takes her a moment to remember that, as a vampire, he doesn't breathe -- hence the lack of pectoral movement -- and when it does sink in, her eyes roll.

"You know, for a guy who used to live in a mansion, this small-sleepy-space penchant you're developing is quite the turnaround."

  


* * *

  


Fifteen minutes, a lucky -- or would that be _un_ lucky -- jab to her ribs, and a seriously incipient hernia later she manages to finally guide Angel's growling and protesting form out of the bathroom and onto the bed. Ignoring his glare in favour of one of her own, she massages the bruise rising under her breast.

"Geez, Angel -- you always this much fun when you first wake up? Or is this morning-breath alternative just a special performance all for me?"

Coughing slightly, the vampire continues to glare at her, arms trying to raise his body from its reclined position on the rumpled bedcovers. "Just... leave me... alone..."

She pffts promptly. "Why? So you can crawl under another rock and pass out again? You're sick, Angel."

"I'm fine." Tremors wrack his form, betraying the simple statement.

"Yeah, sure." Stepping forward she presses her index finger to his shoulder, the mild pressure tumbling him back to a lying position. "Ready for the Vampire Olympics you are."

Turning around she heads to the counter above the mini-bar, hands searching through the grocery-bag of goodies she'd purchased the previous night.

"Look, I don't know who -- or what -- made with the wacky finger-painting on your chest, but I _do_ know that after twenty-four hours of R and R you should be back to buff by now. You're not. Hence -- my way informed diagnosis of Angel, the Infirm Vampire."

"I... I just..."

"You're just not fine," she cuts in firmly, examining the antiseptic lotion she'd bought. "Does this stuff even work on vampires?"

"What? Look, I just need -- "

"Shares in Neosporin?" she quips automatically.

" -- some blood."

She freezes, eyes closing. Forget something, Chase? Forcing a smile onto her lips she leaves the lotion on the counter, bending down to open the mini-bar. In a matter of seconds she's unearthed one of the containers from the other bag of groceries. Turning, she holds it out from her, as few fingertips as possible touching the icky object.

"Here."

The vampire, once again trying to rise from the bed, stares at the container in her hands, dumbfounded.

"What?" Her eyebrows raise at his obvious disbelief and she jiggles the item carefully, face wrinkling as the thick liquid clings to the sides of the container. "Come on -- take it already."

"You... you bought me blood?"

Shrugging, she steps forward, physically pushing it into his hand. "Well, yeah." Moving back again she wipes her hands on her bathrobe. "What? You didn't think I was going to let you chow down on me, did you?"

Eyes flicker from her to the blood in his hands and back again. "I don't..."

"Eat people, I know. Still -- better safe than drained."

He stares at her, fingers now tight around the container and after a moment it dawns on her that he doesn't want to drink it. Or rather, doesn't want to drink it with her watching. Well, that's fine by her. On a grossness factor seeing that would be way too high for her stomach to handle anyway.

Deliberately she turns around, busying herself in the tiny kitchenette area as she fills the kettle with water and sets herself the duty of making a cup of coffee. As the water boils she tries to tell herself that the slurping, drinking, noises behind her are due to a smoothie of some description. Banana and strawberry perhaps. Or maybe mango and kiwi-fruit.

Coffee made, she wraps her fingers around the mug tightly, inwardly praying that his own... drink... is finished. Upon turning around she discovers her faith justified and promptly looks for, picks up, and holds out a small waste-basket. Taking the hint, Angel disposes of the empty container and with only a slight scrunching of her nose she puts the basket back in the corner of the room. Out of sight, out of mind, she thinks with a sense of relief.

Taking a sip of her coffee, she studies the man sitting on the bed. He doesn't _look_ any healthier, she notes, but, then again, she's not exactly an expert on vampire physiology. "Feel better?"

He nods jerkily, one arm bracing his upright position as the other rests beside his thigh on the bed. "Th-thank you."

She shrugs, a pleased smile drawing her lips upwards. "No big."

An awkward silence rapidly descends. When her stomach rumbles in hunger, she flushes slightly, covering her embarrassment by searching for her handbag. Finding her purse, and more importantly her cell-phone, she promptly orders herself a pizza. Tucking the phone back into her purse she discovers that Angel's looking at her, a puzzled look on his features.

"Yes?" she snaps a little harshly, uncomfortable with his scrutiny.

He blinks, looking away immediately. "I... I'm sorry... I just... you..."

Her eyebrow raises expectantly.

"You're... Cordelia," he manages eventually. "Cordelia Chase?"

She nods. "The one and only."

Angel licks his lips, obviously searching for words. Eventually, he finds some. "And you... know me?"

She starts to nod again, only to pause. Does she know him? She knows Angel, of course -- the Vampire with a Soul who's in love with the Slayer -- and she knows Angelus -- the Vampire with a Bloody Past who once tried to kill her in a Sunnydale cemetery -- but, and this is what stumps her, is _this_ Angel the same as _those_ Angel's? "Sort of," she offers in the end, giving him a weak smile.

"But how? I mean... I've never seen you before -- or at least, I'm pretty sure we've never met."

Unsurprised by the question, but suddenly clueless as to how she's going to explain everything, she shrugs a little helplessly. "Would you believe me if I said that an ugly fairy granted a rather poorly thought-out wish?"

The disbelieving look sent her way is answer enough.

"Yeah," she sighs, disheartened. "That's what I thought."

Giles had believed her, she remembers then, those last few minutes in the Library flashing through her mind. Or at least, he'd wanted her to explain. The presence of Anya in his apartment later probably meant that he'd done some researching on what little she'd babbled to him and then tried to set things right again. Closing her eyes she wishes -- extremely futilely -- that he'd succeeded.

But he hadn't succeeded. He'd died. And if Anya had killed Giles to stop him from taking back her wish, then the chances of _her_ finding Anya and begging for the same _and_ still being alive after doing so are probably not great. She wishes...

No, she decides firmly, what's done is done. Wishing can't change anything. A bitter chuckle wells within her at that thought. Correction, wishing can't _make things better_. This reality is now _the_ reality, the one-and-only, no more do-overs, plane of her existence.

Opening her eyes she stares at Angel. She _could_ tell him everything, she hypothesises. She could tell him all about her other life, and his other life, and how their lives were so much nicer on the alternate plane. She could tell him about Buffy and about their Romeo-and-Juliet love affair and...

Then what? Tell him that the moment he'd gotten a happy he'd gone all evil? Tried to kill everyone Buffy loved -- not to mention Buffy herself and the rest of the planet -- and then been sent to hell for a hundred years the moment he'd regained his soul? Now _that's_ a story every man -- souled vampire -- wants to hear.

Lost in her thoughts, it takes Angel's sudden growl to make her realise that she's collected the first aid supplies from the counter and headed towards him. For a brief, instantaneous moment, she halts; undecided. Then, shrugging away his reaction to her approach, she kneels down before him. Without giving him a chance to move away, she grabs the antiseptic lotion and a spare piece of bandage, hands rising towards his chest.

Fingers grip around hers suddenly, trying to restrict her progress. Without even looking at him, she tugs herself free, batting his hand away when he automatically makes for another attempt. "Don't be such a baby," she scolds, voice just a little sharp.

He hisses when the lotion-soaked bandage tentatively touches his wounds, back arching as he tries to escape her touch. For a second she thinks he's actually going to push _her_ away -- his hand moving towards her shoulder threateningly -- but when his supporting arm suddenly buckles and he collapses back onto the bedcovers, she knows she's won the brief battle.

With quick, and slightly sloppy, movements she cleans the worst of his cuts; liberally applying burn cream and then dressing the wounds in white gauze. Repeated growls serenade her actions and when she finally finishes, her satisfied smile erases the 'eww' from her features.

"There. Now was that _really_ so horrible?"

He just glares at her, silent, and she rolls her eyes as she picks up the first aid equipment and returns it to the counter. Standing at the end of the bed she looks down at him pointedly, hands on her hips.

" _Thank_ you, Cordelia. I feel so much _better_ now, Cordelia. It sure is nice to be not so icky and _gross_ anymore, Cordelia." Her prompting is met with another glare.

"It was unnecessary, _Cordelia_ ," he responds, voice tired and not just a little angry. "I'm a vampire... I can heal without your help."

Bristling, she crosses her arms against her chest. "Well, forgive me for wanting to speed the process up a little!"

A knock at the motel door upstages his reply and when he attempts to rise -- _again_ \-- from the bed, her patience disappears. Not bothering with a single finger this time, she shoves firmly at his shoulder, forcing him back down. "Rest!"

Spinning on her heel she grabs her purse, heading to the door. With little fuss she shoves her suitcase out of the way, wrenches the plywood open, and accepts delivery of her pineapple-and-Tandoori-chicken pie. When she turns back, Angel's once again -- big surprise here -- glaring at her. The anger, and distrust, in his eyes is potent and for a moment she feels nothing but exasperation. Then, like a sucker-punch to the gut, like a no-more-credit warning on her VISA, an ache shoots through her, clenching her heart.

He's the last person she really knows, her last link to what may have been the best months of her life -- even if the end to those months was horrific. Nerveless fingers clutch the pizza box tightly as she leans back against the closed door, staring at him, dumbfounded by this sudden thought.

She's alone. Even with Angel here -- she's still _alone_.

The surviving Scoobie, the remaining white-hat. She blinks back tears that aren't even there and considers wishing -- just one last time -- for everything to be okay again. For life to return to normal.

For someone to be her friend.

With a final, bitter look in her direction, Angel deliberately rolls over, presenting her with his back. Heart even tighter now, she sucks in a ragged breath and with emotions freezing, she pushes away from the door, resolutely ignoring the vampire who's already decided to ignore her. Perching herself on the edge of the bed, she opens the pizza box in her lap. Behind her, Angel shifts, body curling closer to the farthest side, his desire to stay away from her no less than the pain in her chest.

She selects a random slice of pie and, limbs leaden, raises a piece of pineapple to her lips.

  


* * *

  


"I don't know you." The words tumble from her lips without warning, tripping over heavily-sauced pieces of chicken and a super-thin crust. "Or, at least, not who you _are_. I do, however, know who you _were_."

There's no reaction and determinedly she forces herself to eat another piece of pie.

"You were Angelus. The Surge of Europe." She's said it wrong but that doesn't matter. "The Master made Darla. Darla made you. You made Drusilla. Drusilla made Spike. One big, psuedo-Manson family. For a century-and-a-half you were a poster child for some serious inner-management issues but when you bit the wrong the girl, gypsies cursed you. You became Angel, the Vampire with a Soul. Another hundred-odd years later and here we are."

Staring at the half-finished pie in her lap, she closes the box, placing it on the floor. Behind her, curiosity prompts Angel into speech.

"How do you..."

"How do I know all that?" she elaborates and even though she can sense no movement, she imagines his nod. "My high-school Librarian, Mr Giles, was a Watcher. He showed me a whole bunch of musty old books, a couple of which were dedicated to your alter-evil-self. The soul stuff I learnt about from my computer teacher, Ms Calender. She was a descendant of the gypsy tribe that initially cursed you."

It's the truth. A heavily edited, certain aspects-and-people removed version of it, yes, but still the truth.

His tone is almost disbelieving. "Since when are vampire's part of a high-school curriculum?"

She shakes her head. "They're not. You were purely extra-curricular."

"You... you read about me for... for _fun_?"

She shrugs. "Well, I wasn't about to join the Math Club -- geek-o-rama much?"

"You knew that Buffy was the Vampire Slayer -- how?"

Her eyes roll. "Hello? Watcher for a Librarian? Little Miss Likes-To-Fight only came up in conversation like every single day."

A true statement, she realises absently, even if coached in the guise of personal unfamiliarity with the girl herself.

Folding her hands in her lap, she stares at her fingers. "I need a manicure." The statement is uttered unconsciously but, in her mind, accurately. With a practised eye she examines her nails, frowning at the not-quite-perfect varnish. "As soon as we get to LA..." she lets her voice trail away, mind already busy scheduling a visit to the most exclusive beauty salon she'll be able to find.

"LA?"

Twisting on the bed, a leg curls up underneath her body as she looks down at vampire, her eyebrow raising. "Los Angeles? Home to the Beverley Centre, and the Dodgers, and, oh," her nose wrinkles, "the wonderful microcosm of life that is Hollywood Boulevard..." she shakes away the less-than-pleasant image before finishing with, "any of this ringing a bell?"

Angel doesn't look at her but a glowering expression creeps across his features. "Cordelia..."

Rolling her eyes at the warning tone, she childishly pokes him in the back; the infantile action done unthinkingly. "Oh, lighten up already, Angel," she chastises him. "Geez -- humour-deficient much?"

A deeper glare now but his voice is devoid of all emotion when he seeks further clarification. "Why Los Angeles?"

"Why not?" she tosses back flippantly.

"Why Los Angeles?" he repeats quietly, tone dangerous.

This time she ignores the warning in his voice outright. "Exclusive boutiques... decadent cafe's... Hollywood hunks... what other reasons could one possibly have for heading to LA?" her tone is wistful, desirous, and gratefully she lets this sudden fantasy steal her away to another world.

Reality, however, is still determined to strip the beauty from her life. In movements so quick and unexpected that an indrawn gasp of fear is all she can manage in response, Angel flips over on the bed. With unerring accuracy his hands latch onto her arms, pushing her down onto the mattress, his body pinning hers.

"Just. Answer. The. Question." he bites out, eyes glinting furiously. "I'm so sick of games, Cordelia Chase -- whoever the hell you are."

Tears flood her eyes, his fingers digging painfully into the burns on her arm. "Angel," she moans, "please..."

"Tell me!" he demands, shaking her.

Squirming, she tries to free herself. One leg is still tucked beneath her, trapped by their combined body weight; the other tangling in the folds of her bathrobe and his own limbs. The tight grasp of his hands on her arms -- her left flaring in agony -- leaves her defenceless, his vampiric strength easily overpowering her efforts to break away. Her head tosses back and forth on the mattress, hair clinging to wet skin as the tears stream down her cheeks.

"Tell me why you're going to LA. Then tell me how you found me. And while you're at it, tell me _why_ you freed me and fed me and... and..."

"Angel..." she gasps.

" _Tell_ me!"

There's an excruciating burst of pain from her arm. Eyes impossibly wide, she inhales a shuddering breath, a panic-stricken half-scream, half-moan torn from her lips. "You're _hurting_ me!"

For a second there's no response, no change in his grip, but when another sob is choked from her lips, his hands move. His torso still keeping her pinned to the mattress, he lets go of her arms long enough to yank the bathrobe from her left shoulder. Fingers grip the white gauze wrapped around the limb and tear sharply, baring the blistered flesh. His eyes widen at the sight and when his gaze flickers to hers, she looks away, head tilting to the side. An instant later, she feels a cool touch on her neck; fingers barely grazing her flesh before a bitter sting as the bandages are ripped from her throat.

"You're hurting me," she repeats softly, voice moist with tears as she stares at the rumpled bedcovers near her face.

Harsh breathing -- which is more than a little weird since he doesn't _need_ to breathe -- echoes in the room; his chest pushing against hers with every panted exhale. "I know," he clips out quietly.

She waits for him to move, for him to let her go and let her up, but he stays there, holding her down. Blinking back tears that are fast becoming tacky, she looks up at him, heart sinking as she realises that they're not going anywhere. "I really don't know you," she breathes out painfully, "do I?"

He shakes his head. "And I don't know you."

The clarification is excruciating. Without wanting to, but having no choice in the matter either, a final tear slips down her cheek. "What do you want to know?"

He shifts just a little, settling his body more firmly against hers. The gesture is deliberate and she understands perfectly. He'll only let her go after she's answered his questions.

"Everything."

  


* * *

  


So she tells him everything.

Everything about herself. Everything about him. Everything.

Buffy, Xander, Willow, Oz, Giles. Ms Calendar and Spike and Drusilla and the Master. Anya too.

Everything.

Desperately she aims for nonchalance, for indifference. An unemotional tone painting a picture of her heaven on earth. Cool words to present a masterpiece of better lives, of better living. She tells him of Sunnydale A -- her world, a slayer's world -- and its sharp, happier, distinction from Sunnydale B -- his world, a vampire's world.

At some point during the recitation of Angelus' visit to Sunnydale, her leg -- the one still trapped beneath their body weight -- cramps, splintering her voice into a ragged moan of pain. He allows her enough mobility to release the limb from its prison but reclaims his hold on her body almost immediately, their legs entwining again -- this time completely.

Her mouth is dry, throat parched, by the time she's explained how her world became a sudden fantasy, a foolish wish. Suddenly mute, she closes her eyes.

"Keep going."

"I can't," she apologises, quickly explaining as her eyes open, "I just... I need a glass of water or something -- my throat's sore."

For a moment he just looks down at her, a blank, almost clueless expression on his features. In response, she pulls up her most pitiful, woe-is-me mask; the mien foolproof, having yet to fail her.

When he shifts, she starts to visualise the next set of events. First, a drink. Second, her car keys and the box of vamp-repellents sitting on her backseat.

Holding her, he twists just enough so that his head can rest on the mattress beside hers; their bodies still caught in a deceptively intimate embrace. Patiently, she waits for him to release her, and when it becomes clear that he has no intention of doing so, frowns.

"Angel?"

"Mmm?"

"What... what are you doing?"

His chin brushes her shoulder when he speaks, words murmured into her ear. "We're taking a break."

She blinks. "Oh-kay." Fidgeting, she tries for freedom. "Uh, Angel?"

"Mmm?"

"Let _go_."

He shakes his head, the action felt more than seen. "I'll let go when you're finished. You wanted a break from talking? We're taking a break."

She can almost hear the mischief in his voice, the amusement. Shades of Angelus and that, coupled with the way his words are reverberating against her skin, is more than enough to make her shudder.

"Damnit Angel -- let me go!"

His tone switches to hard instantaneously. "You have two choices here, Cordelia. Either you keep telling me what I want to know, or you take your damn break. If going for the latter, then I suggest you shut up."

Focusing on the ceiling, she forces out a frustrated breath. The urge to tell him exactly _what_ , in her opinion, _he_ can 'shut' is strong. Painfully so. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on the many -- _many_ \-- ways she's going to make him pay when this caveman act of his is finally over. Nobody mistreats Cordelia Chase like this, she reminds herself firmly, and gets away with it.

Nobody.

  


* * *

  


She's just dozed off when a sharp pinch jerks her back to sudden consciousness. "Ow!" Glaring, she fixes the vampire with her best dirty look. "What the hell was that for?"

"Break's over."

"What are we -- five years old? You didn't have to bruise me, you know. A simple 'excuse me Cordelia, could you please continue' would have sufficed."

"Just tell me what happened after Anya -- " he pauses briefly and she nods to indicate that he's gotten the name right, " -- granted your wish."

Exhaling sharply, she closes her eyes. "Fine."

The events of the past forty-eight -- or would that now be seventy-two? -- hours begin to race through her mind and she attempts to dictate them coherently.

"So, Anya said 'done' and, just like that, reality went off into this new bizarro-land tangent..."

  


* * *

  


It takes less than half an hour to finish her tale. An hour and a half to explain reality -- the _original_ reality -- and yet only twenty odd minutes to explain how reality got screwed to high heaven. She closes her eyes, exhaling shakily. Nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds. Her life has flipped and spun and turned head-over-heels and yet all it takes is a third of an hour to recite it.

There's something cosmically unjust about that.

She scoffs silently. Correction -- there's something universally wrong about the whole damned situation.

"So," murmurs Angel, shifting beside her, "you found me by accident."

She nods.

"Now tell me why."

She's exhausted; her throat aches and what she really wants to do is roll over and close her eyes and pray for a few hours of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. "Why what?" she asks tiredly before answering her own question with another. "Why did I 'save' you?"

He nods and once again she feels the movement more than anything else. With each brush of his head next to hers, his arms tighten instinctively, bringing them that tiny bit closer. Once -- a long, _long_ time ago, pre-Buffy and BX -- she'd desired such a situation between this man and herself.

Now she's just hoping he won't resort to his baser instincts and _really_ hurt her.

"I'm out of this place, okay? Out of Sunnydale, out of California... I'm going where vampires need a hell of a lot more sun-block to go. The Bahamas... Hawaii... I'm not really fussy. Any tropical, year-round summer locale will suit. I'm going to sit on a beach all day, soaking up obscene amounts of sunshine, and by night I'm going to lock myself in a resort that's decorated with Gucci crosses. Nothing, and nobody, is going to mistake me for a human buffet ever again."

"So where do I factor into this summer vacation?"

She grins wryly, opening her eyes. "I want you to protect me."

"On an obscenely sunny beach?"

She tilts her head at his dubious tone, meeting his eyes. "Relax Soul-boy, I'm after a vampire-free existence. Having a flaming torch for a travelling companion is so not on the itinerary."

"Then..."

"My father's in LA -- business trip," she explains, cutting him off. "First time I ever met Buffy she told me she was from LA -- a place she left because she burnt down her old high school fighting vampires. On the basis that I'm not too keen to run into anymore of her enemies, I want you to protect me. Be my Kevin Costner."

"Be your _what_?"

"Geez -- rent a video sometime. My _bodyguard_. I'm talking a day -- two tops. Just long enough for my father to organise my flight details and for me to get the hell out of this place."

She can tell that he's thinking about it, working it all over in his sun-starved mind. Patiently she waits and eventually he meets her gaze, a curious expression taking precedence. "And why would I want to do this? What's to stop me from leaving you here and just walking away?"

She sighs. "Nothing," she admits truthfully before arching an eyebrow, "except for the fact that I'm willing to pay you."

Dubiousness returns. "You'll _pay_ me?"

She nods. "Yep."

"You'll pay a _vampire_ to protect you from... vampires?"

She nods again, adding a grin to the equation. "Uh huh." At his disbelieving look, she explains. "The way I see it, you hire people to protect you from people. Ergo, when you need protection from demons? You hire a demon."

He's silent once more, no doubt examining everything she's said and everything she hasn't. Eventually, he raises an eyebrow.

"How much?"

  


* * *

  


A rhythmic banging awakes her suddenly, causing her to roll over and flop an arm over bleary eyes. With a jaw splitting yawn she stifles a groan, reaching blindly for the watch she'd left on the rickety bedside table. Dull thuds serenade the action and she grimaces when a series of too-loud moans start penetrating the suddenly too-thin walls.

The read-out on the watch face is less than pleasing but it's enough to get her moving. Rolling out of bed, she stumbles towards the bathroom, another half-yawn, half-groan marking her progress.

Eight minutes of mostly hot water later she's fully conscious but not exactly happy. The wall separating her bed and the bed in the next room is vibrating again as she exits the bathroom and she sends it an exasperated look.

"Nobody's that much of a Romeo, hon. Just finish the Meg Ryan already and shut the hell up."

Angel's asleep -- or passed out again -- on the bed, his body curled almost to the point of falling off the far edge. Tightening her robe belt, she gives his leg a shake, gratified when he jerks into sudden consciousness.

"Wh-what is it? What's going on?"

Turning away she heads to the counter, grabbing the groceries bag and tossing it into his lap. "We're leaving," she tells him firmly.

Blinking, he rubs his eyes. "What?" Looking around he takes in the still dark room. "What time is it?"

"About four-thirty."

"And we're leaving now because..."

"Because in roughly forty minutes time you'll be hiding under a blanket when it's time to get into the car." A dull boom of thunder briefly overpowers Fabio's conquest in the next room and she ignores nature's possible contradiction of her statement as she grabs his arm, helping him to a standing position and then pushing him towards the bathroom. "Go freshen up -- but don't shower -- I don't have time to change your bandages again." Heading to her suitcases, she starts searching for something to wear. "I'm going to go settle up the account -- I want to be on the road again in fifteen."

A growl echoes through the plywood.

  


* * *

  


It takes almost thirty minutes for them to get out of the motel but the delay does enable her the time to gulp down a quick cup of coffee and to get the second container of blood into Angel. Fifteen minutes into the trip, the heavens open, colouring the dawning sky an ash-grey as a storm creeps in from coast.

Fifty minutes later, they reach LA.

  


* * *

  



	3. Los Angeles

"This is... nice..."

In the process of tipping the bellhop, she looks up to see Angel studying the room. "This is better than nice, Angel," she corrects him absently, "this is the Plaza."

He makes no comment to that, just continues to look around the room. As the uniformed man finally leaves, shutting the doors behind him, she moves towards the table and takes a quiet seat.

"So, what now?"

Angel's query echoes her own thoughts exactly. Lacing her fingers as they rest on the mahogany surface, she clears her throat, hoping the action will somehow bring a similar clarity to her scattered thoughts. After a moment she looks up, casting Angel with a scrutiny that soon has him fidgeting.

"What?"

"First," she begins slowly, taking in the cheap t-shirt and worn pants look, "we need to get you something decent to wear."

Angel's eyebrows raise. "Excuse me?"

The decision -- in her mind -- made, she nods firmly. "Yes. Shopping first."

  


* * *

  


She imagines it'll take a lot of convincing -- and time -- to make Angel respectable looking but the vampire proves to be quite the shopping companion. With only a slight disagreement about his choice -- or lack thereof -- in colour, he's soon looking less like a refugee and more like someone deserving to be in her presence.

Accepting back her credit card from the shop girl she looks up just in time to see Angel exiting the dressing rooms, a new outfit firmly in place as he walks past her and towards the shop exit. Surprised, her breath locks in her throat.

The dark pants... and dark shirt...

"Angel..." she breathes out silently, the name torn from her lips just as the man before her has been torn from her memories. Suddenly, she can all but hear the sound of music, see the press of bodies on the dance floor... Angel's standing there with his back to her, reality rewinding sharply into the past... and the shop girl says something but she can't hear Aura's words, can't see her standing near the rest-room doors.

Legs trembling she takes a step and, when her balance doesn't fail her, takes another. Some distant part of her mind is warning her that this isn't real, that she's not really in the Bronze... and that even if she _is_ somehow back in the Sunnydale hang-out, that there's no way Angel would be standing there, searching the crowd -- the store? -- for _her_.

She's almost reached him when he starts to move again and for a moment she thinks she sees Buffy, the blonde waiting near the stairs -- or is that the exit? -- for Angel. A chill sweeps down her spine, the memory that Buffy's dead briefly overpowering this historical re-enactment and catching her off-guard, but the thought -- and Buffy -- dissipates rapidly when Angel turns to face her.

"Hi," she whispers shakily, mind throbbing with a hundred different lines and invitations.

"Hi."

For a moment she's sure she's going to ask him to dance. She's going to smile at him, and draw her fingers down his arm until she can grasp his hand and lead him onto the dance floor. The words poise, ready to fall, on her lips, her hand raising to take his...

... only it's his shoulder, not his arm, that her hand smooths over. Her fingers brush the collar of his shirt before burying in the soft brown strands of hair at the nape of his neck, gently tugging until his head lowers and their lips meet. She can't tell if he's surprised, or upset, or even happy by this action. She can only focus -- can only _feel_ \-- the touch of his lips against hers, the cool delight of his tongue tracing patterns across her teeth. A silent moan is swiftly captured from her throat as her mouth opens, allowing him entrance; his hands moving to her waist.

Fingers press sharply into her flesh, holding her there, and her arm tightens around his neck in response. For what seems like forever they stay like that, kissing -- just kissing, they're just kissing -- before a soft growl rumbles deep in his chest and her eyes slowly drift open.

Confused, golden orbs stare back at her and a scream builds within her throat automatically, the vampiric features leeching every emotion except fear from her body.

In an instant the past vanishes, leaving only the present. Her breath hitches in her chest, tumbling out in a series of sharp pants and she really _is_ going to scream. She's going to shout and pull away and she's going to demand to know what the _hell_ he thought he was doing -- never mind that it was _she_ who orchestrated this -- and then she realises that they have an audience.

Thinking only that she doesn't want to escalate this already bad situation, she tugs sharply, burying his face in her neck. A breathy moan of panic escapes before she can censor it, the sensation of a vampire so close to her throat reminding her of the last time -- Xander... Willow... -- and she struggles to keep her composure.

"Lose the face," she hisses desperately, heart pounding as she watches the shop girl and the couple of customers who have just received a free soft-porn show.

After another agonisingly long moment of voyeurism, the customers realise that the performance is over and turn away, going back to their shopping. She shudders.

"Is it gone?" she whispers and when he nods, she pulls away from him so quickly that she stumbles. Hands catch her automatically, steadying her, and once her balance is back she again steps out of his reach, this time more sedately.

"Wh-what just happened?" he asks, eyes wide with shock and she's not sure he's alone in that emotion.

"I -- " she searches for an answer desperately, unconvinced that she has one. Her gaze scans the store, searching the garment racks on the off chance there's an answer on sale; an exclusive price -- response -- just for her. The shop girl, she realises then, is still watching them.

Brushing past him and heading for the exit, she mumbles the first thing that comes to mind.

"I thought you were someone else."

  


* * *

  


On any other day she'd be in a Mercedes right now. Or a limousine. Hell, _anything_ chauffeured. She'd be sitting back -- all nice and dry -- and smirking absently at the people hurrying along a rain-soaked street, their hair frizzing and make-up running; clothes becoming stained with water-spots.

Any other day.

Thrusting a fifty dollar note blindly into the hands of a street vendor, she grabs two umbrellas, handing one to the vampire at her side and then continuing on at a brisk pace, not even waiting for her change. The clasp on the object sticks a little and she fights with it furiously, her anger finally winning the minor battle and opening the screen.

Of course, she thinks frantically, on any other day she wouldn't even _be_ here. She wouldn't be in LA, she wouldn't be walking -- running almost -- away from a store and towards her father's occasional offices, and she _certainly_ wouldn't have a trailing vampire at her heels. A vampire she'd just _kissed_.

A brisk wind, moist with rain, dashes along the sidewalk and she tilts the umbrella back just enough so that it can dance over her features; the bitter-fresh air cooling her reddened cheeks and masking the sheen of moisture in her eyes. Her heels clatter over concrete and puddles indiscriminately, her haste for once overriding aesthetic concerns for appropriate leather-care.

She's losing it, is the random thought that peppers across her consciousness and the notion almost causes her to laugh. Cordelia Chase -- the undisputed Queen of Sunnydale -- is losing it. And the sobering thought that erases her barely withheld laughter is the idea that maybe she already has.

Has she lost it? _Has_ she?

Her reality is gone. Her friends are gone. Would it really be such a bizarre concept for her sanity to be gone as well?

And really, what other explanation is there? Only insanity would cause her to suddenly believe that she was back in the Bronze. Only insanity would make her think that time had suddenly rewound and given her a do-over. A chance to right the wrongs in her life that wishing... that wishing... Wishing had screwed things up even further, not made them better, and was it really so out-there to think that an insanity-induced second -- third? -- chance could finally right all the wrong's and what-if's in her life?

Like... what if Angel hadn't walked over to Buffy that night in the Bronze? What if he had turned and faced her? What if she had asked him to dance that night? What if it had been _her_ and not _Buffy_ that Angel...

Would she have still fallen for Xander? Would Xander have still cheated with Willow?

Would she have still made that wish?

The bites on her neck, hidden by yet another high-necked jersey, throb with a ghostly pain. Halting suddenly, she looks up slowly as Angel pauses at her side, his eyes black and unreadable in the storm-darkened street. For the first time since that memory-rendered moment in the store she realises that she was... mistaken. Wrong. This isn't the Bronze-Angel she thought he was.

His shirt is navy silk, not black cotton. There's no longer a white t-shirt covering his chest. His hair isn't gelled and there's no certainty in those shoulders.

This man is tense, gaze haunted, and she knows first-hand that there's blood under that silk shirt. He's been tortured and held prisoner for who-knows-how-long and for the past two nights, when he thinks she's asleep, he's cried in the silence.

"Why have we stopped?"

A slow, sad smile stretches across her lips. She was mistaken, and she was wrong, but that's okay now. She's not insane either, and that's _more_ than okay.

"Duh," she answers lightly, waving an absent hand towards the building name emblazoned across frosted glass windows. "We're here."

Reaching out she takes his hand as she pulls him through the revolving doors and into the Lobby. She kissed Angel and that... that's okay too, because she wasn't really kissing _this_ Angel... she was simply saying goodbye.

She's kissed away the last of her wishes, the last of her what-if's.

Now everything will be okay.

  


* * *

  


Everything is _so_ not okay.

As she waits for her father to arrive, curious fingers trail along the edge of his desk. The oak surface is smooth, sleek, and tastefully decorated with a fountain pen set and leather-bound writing pad. A closed lap-top rests on one side, a professional family portrait of her father, her mother and herself on the opposite side. A name plaque faces the door, ebony metal engraved in gold and she bites her lip.

This is wrong.

Picking up the plaque she stares at her father's name and at the title described beneath it. Partner. Her eyes rove about the expensively decorated, eighth floor office that according to her memories should be a nicely set-out, third floor 'visiting associate' office. Her father's favourite van Gogh print dominates the wall opposite her and only now does she remember that, previously, that painting had been in her father's study back in Sunnydale.

It's all wrong.

As the door opens she places the plaque back on the desk, turning in time to see her father entering the office. For a moment she can glimpse her father's secretary -- Ms Morgan -- and Angel in the outer room, before her father shuts the door and faces her.

"Cordelia."

Suddenly nervous, she half-raises her hand in a small wave. "Hey, Daddy."

She walks toward him slowly, reassured when he closes the distance, and for a brief -- _wonderful_ \-- moment she's in his arms. Safe. Everything will be okay again now... her daddy has always made her life better...

"Cordelia..." Pulling back, her father looks down at her, a disapproving look suddenly erasing the welcoming smile that had been on his features. "What on _earth_ are you doing here? Why aren't you at school?"

Apprehension returns. "Daddy..." her mouth is dry and she licks her lips, "I need help..."

  


* * *

  


Exiting her father's office, she pauses briefly to compose herself. Angel, no doubt anxious to leave, rises at her appearance and, with a quick glance towards her father's secretary, she pastes a bright grin on her face.

"So, ready to admit that you're wrong?" she asks loudly as, striding briskly to his side, she links her arm through his. He looks down at her, a surprised mien appearing and, after making sure that her back's to the desk, she whispers quietly to him. "Just disagree with me, okay?"

A baffled frown presents itself but at her urging look he nods imperceptibly. "No."

Smiling gratefully, she tugs on his arm. "Ooh, you are _so_ stubborn!" she bemoans. "Why can't you just accept the fact that I'm right?"

"Because you're not," he answers promptly, voice almost -- but not quite -- a monotone.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see her father's secretary now regarding them curiously. "Ooh!" she pouts again before suddenly turning and pinning the secretary with a bright grin, "Ms Morgan!"

The older brunette raises an eyebrow, pushing loose bangs of hair out of her eyes. "Yes, Miss Chase?"

"Maybe you can settle this argument for us. See," taking a deep breath, she starts rambling, "Andrew and I were having this discussion about whether or not beige is the new off-white or if eggshell is and we got to talking about Daddy's office which, as I'm sure you _know_ , used to be in this way trendy gold-and-navy motif -- remember the curtains? Weren't they to _die_ for?" Without even pausing for the woman's nod of recognition, she keeps going. "Anyway, I said that Daddy's office has always been decorated by Pierre Martin -- he did that _gorgeous_ spread for LA Today -- remember?"

"I remember," Ms Morgan just manages to interject.

"Of _course_ you do. So _then_ , Andrew had the nerve -- the _nerve_ ," she emphasises, "to say that Daddy's office was last decorated by Pierre _Beaumont_! Huh! As if! Now I've been _trying_ to tell him that Daddy would never allow that charlatan anywhere _near_ his offices, but Andrew just won't listen to me. So then I said that Daddy would rather _move_ offices than let Pierre Beaumont decorate for him and Andrew said that that was the whole reason his offices are now here instead of back in Sunnydale and I said 'nuh-uh', Daddy has _so_ been in LA longer than that and _Andrew_ said -- " Pausing, she looks up at Angel, a confused look deliberately on her features. "What did you say again?"

"No."

"That's right, Andrew said 'no' and I said 'yes' and then we started discussing whether or not -- " Halting again, she shrugs. "Well, that's not important I guess." Looking at the secretary, she plasters another grin onto her face, expectation rampant in her voice. "So can you tell him?"

Eyes wide, Ms Morgan is the picture of utter confusion. "Tell... tell him what?"

Rolling her eyes, she places her hands on her hips. "Hello! Weren't you listening? Andrew needs to know how long Daddy's had his office here."

For a moment, the woman can only fish-mouth. "Two years," she answers finally, "this Spring."

Satisfied, she looks to Angel, poking him -- gently -- in the ribs. "See, I told you I was right."

Rolling his own eyes, Angel nods. "Fine, you were right." Taking her arm, he nods politely towards the secretary before guiding her away from the desk. "Now let's go."

Smiling brightly, she waves goodbye to Ms Morgan, following Angel to the elevators. Half a minute later, they're on their way to the Lobby floor.

"You want to tell me what that was all about?"

A plastic grin still firmly pulling up the corners of her mouth, she shakes her head. "Later." For a moment she thinks Angel is going to insist on an answer and she sends him a warning look. "Later," she repeats firmly.

The elevator doors open and, grabbing his hand, she entwines their fingers as she pulls him out into the Lobby.

"Come on -- you can buy me a cup of coffee."

  


* * *

  


The cafe is nearly empty, the lunchtime rush not yet in and the stormy day keeping all but the diehard caffeine freaks at home or at the office. Wrapping her fingers around a steaming cup she sips gingerly, watching as rain-soaked pedestrians hurry past the window.

"So, what time's your flight?"

Without looking at him, she raises a finger and slowly traces the path of a raindrop down the glass. "No flight."

"What do you mean -- 'no flight'?"

"I mean -- no flight." Turning away from the window, she places her vanilla-and-mocha latte on the table. "My father has given me two choices -- either I go back to Sunnydale and graduate -- though, lets face it, I'll probably die first -- or..."

Angel, slouched in the chair opposite her, straightens. "Or?" he prompts.

"Or I'm cut off." A sour expression twists her features. "Completely. As in -- no home, no credit cards, no flights out of this hellhole... no nothing. Not to mention -- no dresses, no cell phone and no car."

A raised eyebrow precedes Angel's response. "Your father will disown you if you don't go back?"

"Disown, disinherit -- not really seeing a difference here."

"Did you explain to him that Sunnydale is on a Hellmouth?"

With an 'are you crazy?' look, she nevertheless nods her head. "He knows the score. Not the Hellmouth-vampire-Master score, but there's an understanding there."

"But if you didn't tell -- "

"Angel," she cuts him off, shaking her head sadly. "In my reality my father has his main offices in Sunnydale. He comes to LA once a month for a couple of days... _maybe_." She sends him a pointed look. "You heard what his secretary said."

Understanding finally dawning, the vampire looks astounded. "Two years this Spring," he murmurs, repeating Ms Morgan's words.

"Two years ago would be right around the time the Master rose, right?" she responds, the question mainly rhetoric.

"But what about your mother?"

"In my reality," she's _so_ getting sick of that statement, "my mom's currently at a health spa getting herself all rejuvenated. Two month duration, tops. Here? She's a permanent year-round resident at our ski condo in Aspen."

"Are you telling me that your parents have deliberately left you alone in Sunnydale? Choosing to relocate themselves but not their daughter?"

Shrugging, she retrieves her coffee, a sarcastic tone coating her voice. "Welcome to Parenting 101 -- the Chase way. They -- so my father reminded me -- want me to finish my schooling in my home town. As nouveaux-rich, they consider it a way to maintain their social standing by having a child who has excelled from such 'humble' beginnings."

"That's crazy," Angel remarks, fingers playing with a packet of sugar.

"So says the man who had such a great relationship with his parents that he ended up _eating_ them."

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Angel bestows upon her a savage glare. "Moving along..." he prompts.

She shrugs despondently. "Kinda the problem, isn't it? I'm not _allowed_ to 'move along'."

Raking his fingers through his hair, he looks at her curiously. "So, what will you do? Will you go back to Sunnydale?"

"Pfft! As _if_!" Shuddering at the mere thought she drains her coffee, setting the empty cup down. "Earth to retard! The last night I spent in Sunnydale had me four litres underweight and a tan away from becoming the new mascot for Pete's 'Charcoal  & Grill'." She shakes her head. "I'm never going back there."

An uncomfortable silence develops between the two and she takes a moment to study him. Slender fingers worry the sugar packet in his hands, eyes dark beneath a furrowed brow. Every so often his head raises so that he can scan the cafe, body shifting nervously. He doesn't want to be here -- that much is oh-so-obvious.

"Look," she starts eventually, breaking the awkwardness, "we had a deal -- one I fully intend to still honour, by the way." She pauses as he looks up, meeting her gaze. "And so what if my plans of leaving this country for dust have hit a snag? I'm young, and resourceful, and still the proud owner of a sizeable Trust Fund -- " she sends him a crooked grin, " -- for the moment, anyway. Don't worry, okay? I'll figure something out."

His gaze is doubtful and even though she feels a mimicking emotion, she smothers it. Grabbing her purse, she stands.

"Take me back to the hotel?"

  


* * *

  


A week passes without her having any say in the matter, any control.

The storm which has curtained Los Angeles in wet steel on the day they arrive disappears back out to sea that very same night, leaving the city winter-cool but sunny. Angel refuses to leave their hotel room again once the sun reappears and so she spends the first two days shopping, absently handing over her credit cards as she purchases clothing and accessories and God-knows-what-else. For the first time in her life she shops with little to no enthusiasm, the pastime simply that. A way to pass the time.

At night the vampire takes to sitting in the corner, a book or newspaper open in his lap but barely glanced at as he stares blindly towards the always curtained window in their room. She, in turn, gazes unseeingly at the TV, mind revolving endlessly over her two choices -- her family or her life? death or poverty? Sunnydale or somewhere safe? -- before falling asleep, her decision as yet unmade.

On the third day, as she finds herself staring -- but not crying, never crying -- at a heart pendant in a jewellery store window, a homeless man grabs her arm, begging for change. She screams and, panicking, runs back to the hotel in blind terror. Furiously she wakes Angel, demanding to know why he isn't doing his job, why he isn't protecting her. An argument erupts then, the vampire refuting that he _can't_ protect her in the sunlight and, besides which, why _should_ he when it isn't even certain that she'll still be able to pay him. The fight only ends when -- piqued -- she pulls open the curtains, forcing him to retreat to the bathroom.

After that, she clings to the tense safety of the hotel room twenty-four-seven.

Curled in the armchair and not-watching the vampire sleep on the bed, the fourth day marks a phone call from Ms Morgan. Her father's secretary informs her that her father is well aware that she is still in Los Angeles but that she can remain here for the duration of the winter holidays. After New Year's, however, she will have to return to school. She congratulates herself on not crying over the fact that her father has failed to ask her to stay with him. She's not stupid enough to believe that her father doesn't know that she's staying in a hotel room with an unidentified male, but she is -- _was_ \-- naive enough to think that he'd care about it.

Day five, having not eaten for over twenty-four hours, Angel finally bridges the heavy silence between them to ask where she has previously been buying his blood from. Ashamed -- though loathe to admit it -- by the fact that she has forgotten that her no longer going out will result in an unexpected diet for the vampire, she bribes one of the bellhops into going to the butchers for her.

For another three days life just drifts along, dragging her closer and closer to her father's deadline but leaving her numb in the process. By day she sits silently in the room, Angel asleep on the bed. At night, their positions reverse. She feels like she's slowly dying, fading away with every passing minute as she waits for a salvation, an answer, a decision that never seems to come.

She's not even sure she cares anymore.

  


* * *

  


A silent choir ghosts the air as she enters, echoing soft lyrics. "... every night I see your face when I have to pray. I need a bell, a book and candle to keep your ghost away..."

The church is old; glass stained and pews empty. Warm wood paints the walls, cool lead blackening the cornices. Marble softens her footsteps and the far away ceiling arches towards a heaven she will never see. The crucifix looms, high and dominating, and she slowly approaches, willing her steps not to falter under the anguished expression of a persecuted Christ. A Hail Mary trips silently from her lips, half-forgotten words mouthed into the hallowed sanctuary, and she hopes that sincerity will forgive the mistakes she's surely making.

When she reaches the altar she halts, her prayer freezing on her lips as she takes in the flickering array of votive candles. Hundreds upon hundreds of the tiny candles line the tiers, their flames wavering in the religious serenity and warming her cheeks. She can't count how many are there, how many prayers have been ignited; the amount is simply too great. She can, however, number the small collection that are still unlit.

"How many?"

She does not turn, does not face the voice that echoes her conscience. Nor does she kneel and repent; her humbled figure, she knows, is no longer welcome here. Perhaps it never was -- Willow never did receive her aspirin.

"How many?"

"Seven," she answers finally, selecting a taper with trembling fingers. A flickering flame sears the end and she hovers it over the first votive candle, hesitant.

"Name them." Her gaze shutters at the command and a tremor wracks her form. " _Name_ them."

Opening her eyes, she steels herself, and ignites the candle. "For Xander, who broke my heart."

The second votive mocks her silently but she lights it anyway, hand shaking. "For Willow, who stole my boyfriend."

The third. "For Buffy, who changed my world."

And fourth. "For Giles, who tried to help."

Now the fifth. "For Oz, who did nothing wrong."

She stops, a silent tear cracking the porcelain of her cheek.

"You haven't finished."

"I know."

"Keep going."

"I can't," the words splinter in her mouth, spilling out shattered. She can feel him behind her, chilled flesh balancing the warmth of the candles.

"You created this world, this hell?"

"Yes."

"Then _fill_ it."

Her gaze rises sadly, locking onto a crucified statue that watches without compassion. The flickering taper alights on the sixth and seventh votive candles, wicks spluttering briefly before flaring into flamed brilliance.

"For Angel and Cordelia," she whispers softly, "who survived."

Fangs pierce her neck, her vampiric shadow immolating under the cross even as she closes her eyes and surrenders.

  


* * *

  


She wakes.

The room is shadowed by lamplight; mostly dark and almost oppressive. With the dimness, she realises, it's not that hard to recall the church from her dream. To remember the flickering votive candles, the polished mahogany pews, the ruby-red and sapphire-blue stained glass windows. Inhaling, she can almost smell the hints of rosemary and red wine, the candle wax and taper smoke... the galling bouquet of coppered blood and burnt ash.

She swallows, hard, and thinks 'I won't think about it', but she does anyway. Fingers tangle just a little with the linen sheets before grazing the white gauze on her neck. Every night she dreams of them, of these bites. The wounds have all but healed yet still they remain hidden, covered, as if the illusion of first aid can make them hurt less.

Truth is, they _don't_ hurt anymore. She just thinks they do.

Air leaves her lungs, brushing past slightly parted lips, and it's not a sigh or a moan, it's just air. Spent, dead, exhausted oxygen. She wishes she could escape her life as easily as the element flees her body.

With difficulty she forces her thoughts away. It's getting harder and harder to find that clean slate now. Wiping away bad thoughts used to be so easy. She could insult anyone, do anything, and none of it mattered. Any possible guilt over her behaviour was easily eradicated with self-assurance, confidence and the power of popularity. Life flowed like champagne and anything unsavoury was immediately forgotten. A perpetually clean slate.

The dirt is so thick these days; she can't help but wonder if she'll ever be clean again.

The door is within her view; an entrance she opens each day to admit a bellhop with blood but no longer uses as an exit. She misses her freedom almost as much as she needs this dark safety. Behind her, she knows, her vampire sits in the armchair under the curtained window, an unread book splayed open on his lap. Their routine is so set now, so defined; she knows that if she rolls over and looks at him, tears will be streaking his cheeks.

She's not sure what bothers her more -- that he still cries and she doesn't, or that he cries and she doesn't know why.

And _that_ confuses her. She's stopped caring about everything else.

So why does she still care that he cries?

  


* * *

  


Later now and as she tends to the still nasty burns on her arm -- wounds she knows are scarring her once-perfect flesh -- it occurs to her that her ablutions have varied. A ceremony of preening and primping has mutated into economy cleansing and careful doctoring and -- suddenly -- she's horrified by the realisation. Looking exquisite was never a choice -- it was a duty. One she took very, very seriously. As Cordelia Chase, being gorgeous was required, expected -- preponderate over everything else. To have degenerated into existing by natural -- careless! -- beauty alone... she sucks in a shuddering breath.

Her life has officially become a nightmare.

Her arm half-bound, she rises slowly. Manicure scissors and bandage clasps fall from her lap and clatter faintly on the bathroom tiles. Ignoring them, she moves to the vanity basin, fingers clenching against the porcelain as she stares at her reflection.

For a long time she stands there, looking into the mirror. Her gaze catches and falls from the starkness of her Maybelline-free features, from the still rough and scabbing wounds on her neck; trembles and breaks from the white glare of an unravelling bandage on her arm. Her tan, already dissected by an ivory bra, is fading; the clean but unstyled locks of chestnut hair tumbling across alabaster shoulders.

This isn't her. It _can't_ be her.

Looking down she finds the vanity bench still littered with her makeup. Gloss and kohl and more besides clutters the surface, all resting where she last dropped them. Has it really been a week? Has it _only_ been a week?

She was going to figure it out that day, she remembers, staring at a vial of her favourite scent. She was going to search for a new bikini -- or three -- and have lunch at Sartian's while she figured out how to change her father's mind.

Instead she ended up being accosted by memories, frightened by a beggar, and cowering in a darkened hotel room.

Fisting the perfume, a ragged breath passes her lips. On it, carried unconsciously, is a curse, a name. "Buffy..."

White hot rage floods her and in one swift move her arm lashes out, wiping the vanity clean of everything cosmetic. A cacophony erupts as containers shatter against the side of the marble bathtub; contents staining rainbow swirls. Fingers itching, fury suddenly unleased, she reaches and grabs and throws whatever she can find. Her world hazes and she can just hear someone screaming -- is that her? Can just hear the call of her name -- Angel?

Spinning, she lobs the perfume vial furiously. Before it can even connect with Angel's shoulder -- and what's he doing in here anyway? wasn't he asleep? -- she's falling; feet slipping on the cream-smeared tiles. She lands hard, body jarring painfully and glass crunching beneath her fingertips.

What happens next, she won't remember. Later, though, he'll tell her. They'll both be calmer then, somewhat spent, cradled in an embrace that is more wrong than right. Her hair will cascade across his shoulder, her palm will press against his abdomen, and his lips will brush the top of her head. They won't be happy, but they'll be... sort of peaceful, almost content.

So she doesn't know it now, but he will tell her later, that she's wild; out of control. A hunched form on moisturised tiles, hands shaking as they fist and unfist against glass slivers. She's half-crying, half-rambling, and maybe even half-screaming -- the math of it be damned -- and he can barely understand her.

"Cordelia..."

Later, when they're on the bed and she's trying to explain herself, she'll still be crying. Whispering that she's so tired of her life revolving around Buffy -- it's _always_ about Buffy -- and he won't understand, not really, but he'll hold her close anyway.

"Cordelia!"

And he'll tell her that while she doesn't seem to be aware of his presence, her aim would say otherwise. A tube of Cocoa Wine lipstick strikes his arm, leaving a brown smear. The cracked lid of a moisturiser -- dripping a pale cream -- clatters against his bare feet, painting his toes. He ducks a still whole vial of nail varnish and it hits the door behind him, miraculously intact when it hits the ground.

" _Cordelia_!"

He'll also tell her that after her curling iron skids across the tiles -- her aim faltering now and arm no doubt tired of throwing -- he comes forward. His hands latch upon her arms; a physical attempt to restrict any further violence on her part. But hair tangling, roping across her shoulders and blinding her sight, she only gasps suddenly, slumping into his grasp.

"I... I can't... I..."

He holds her arms, form tense, grip unyielding as she hyperventilates.

"Can't... I... I... breathe... can't breathe..."

Her last utterance is the same as her first; the five letters softly moaned even as she capitulates into unconsciousness, collapsing into his embrace.

"Buffy..."

  


* * *

  


She comes too suddenly, mind flickering with half-formed and indistinct impressions; the after-images of a mental overload. Despite the racing of her thoughts, however, lethargy grips her body, pinning her weakly to the bed. She groans softly.

"Stay still."

Even as her eyes flutter open, recognition is vocalised. "An-angel?"

An almost indiscernible grunt is her only reply and she lets her head tilt as a blinking gaze flits to the vampire. He's sitting beside her on the bed, one leg tucked beneath his body and the other dangling over the edge to touch the floor. His brow is furrowed, eyes intense, and suddenly she realises that he's holding her hand.

Confused, she watches as he tends to her palm, slender fingers curling a piece of white gauze around flesh that's speckled with blood. "What happened?"

He doesn't look up, his attention concentrated on this self-imposed duty. "You cut yourself."

"Duh," she manages weakly, "I can see that." She licks her lips, flinching when the rough material snags on raw flesh. "What happened?"

He doesn't bother to reply verbally, just shrugs a little and continues bandage her hand. For a moment she's tempted to pull the limb away and demand -- with a healthy dose of indignation firmly in place -- that he explain everything to her right now. She asks, he answers -- that's how it should be after all.

The moment passes.

Thoughts gradually numbing once again into indifference -- and what does she care about what happened anyway? she's still got bigger issues to worry about than a little scratch on her hand -- she watches him quietly.

He's shirtless -- was he about to go to bed or already in bed when whateveritwas happened? -- and there are still bandages on his chest from the last time she bothered to play nursemaid. How long ago was that? And why does he still have the bandages anyway? When she last saw his torso, the cuts and burns were almost completely healed over.

As he ties off the gauze on her hand, she awkwardly pushes herself into a sitting position. He doesn't help her, just waits until she's stopped moving and then takes her other hand in his.

"They still hurt..." Her free hand hovers over his chest, fingertips barely grazing the evidence of past first aid. Her gaze rises to lock with his. "... don't they?"

For a moment he just stares at her, features inscrutable, before looking away. "Yes," he answers quietly, almost inaudibly.

She nods once. "Yeah, mine too."

Silence descends as they both stare at her hand. She doesn't think this one's cut as badly as the other was but even as she looks at the fine, paper-cut thin line dissecting her palm, beads of blood well along its length. His fingers shake, just a little, as he reaches for another section of gauze.

"Hungry?"

The query leaves her lips without warning, causing them both to flinch at the implication, and he doesn't look at her as he fists the bandage. "No."

"Liar," she replies, without malice.

"I'm not hungry." To his credit, the refute is firm, strong. The tenseness to his form, the tremble to his hands, however, belies its accuracy.

She pulls her hand away from his, reaching up as if to cup his cheek. Her aim is deliberately off, however, and a portion of her palm rests on his chin, over his lips. "I wouldn't mind," she offers quietly.

Nausea fills her yet she keeps her hand there, a morbid fascination encasing her senses. When his own hand raises and grips hers, fingers wrapping around her wrist, anticipation holds her breath.

"I would," he answers softly.

He pulls her hand away from his skin, grip gentle, and she can see the barest trace of her blood on his cheek. Her breathing catches.

"I'm so tired..." she whispers, voice broken.

He nods once and lets go of her hand. "Yeah."

Tears smart and her eyes close as she folds, sinking forward to rest her cheek against his leg. Uncertain palms hover on her back and shoulders and she realises that he doesn't know what to do, how to comfort her.

"Please..." The entreaty is breathless, laced with tears. "Hold me..."

He does.

  


* * *

  


There is something, she thinks hazily, incredibly beautiful about the way Angel kisses her. The slide of his lips against hers is so soft, so tender; the graze of his tongue tangling with hers so utterly erotic and exquisite. She supposes that his many, many years of vampirism have a lot to do with the utter sensuality of his touch, and she knows that that should be terrifying, but the sensations he's causing in her body, on her senses, are as far removed from terrifying as they can get.

It's dangerous, and foolish -- not to mention completely wrong -- but as they lie there on the bed, legs entwined and lips caressing, she feels... almost safe. Happy. And she knows that she's _not_ happy, not really, but the illusion is there. The illusion that as his fingers curve around her throat and map her shoulder blades she's blissful, free of everything bad in her life.

No words pass between them. Exclamations of love would be false, declarations of desire are unnecessary. There's just heavy breathing and whisper-soft moans. Her fingertips trail across his torso, scraping gossamer patterns -- but not words, never words -- around the swirls of fading scars. The bandages there have already been removed, plucked off by her exploring fingers, discarded in the midst of passion.

Lazy, moist kisses leave her all but breathless, stealing her ability to form coherent thoughts. And she knows that she _should_ be thinking. She should be worrying about what she's going to do with her life, pondering the incredible wrongness that is kissing and touching Angel. And how did they end up like this anyway? One minute she was crying in his lap, his hands tentatively touching her upper back in a hesitant and unsure offer of comfort, both of them trying to explain what had happened in the bathroom, and the next...

When did comfort mutate into desire? How did tears transform into sighs?

Why isn't she stopping this?

His palms smooth across her shoulders, catching and tugging on the straps of her bra until the ivory strands fall. Fingers keep stroking, sweeping over her skin and when she feels him fumbling with the clasp on her upper back, she doesn't pull away -- she presses closer. An instant later the lingerie is gone, tossed to the side, and his hands are moving to touch the swell of her breasts, to knead and thumb the pebbling flesh. His fingers are cool, but not uncomfortably so, and she feels anything but cold as his caresses fill her with such a warmth that she moans deeply.

For a moment she's tempted to speak, to whisper entreaties against his lips -- touch me there... and here... touch me _every_ where... -- but as his palms continue to chart the surface of her body she realises that words are unnecessary. Does vampirism include the ability to read minds? His hands smooth down her back, caressing vertebrae, and settle in her lower back, pulling her closer. His thigh, a limb of tense muscle and bone, slides more firmly between her legs, distributing a delicious pressure.

It's different, she thinks absently, arching into his caresses, seeking his lips again and again. The men... _boys_... who have kissed her and petted her in the past have always wanted to touch as much of her as possible, to grab and claim her flesh as their property. Angel's touch, while firm and deliberate and ever-so-nice, is almost gossamer. A process of worship, not a demand of ownership. It's... different.

Better.

Her nails -- still in need of a manicure, but that's far from her thoughts right now -- scrawl along his torso; raking designs of intimacy. Leggings and underwear slip from her hips, guided by Angel, assisted by her own fervour. When his palm grazes the planes of her abdomen, stealing across her waist and tracing ardent paths along her thighs, she gasps breathlessly. Anticipation wars with hesitation -- vague, almost non-existent hesitation -- and desire wins the battle as his fingers float over her skin, settling in the moist heat between her legs.

She gasps again, and again, as he caresses her; his touch exquisite. Almost unconsciously her fingers stray across his stomach, skimming the silk edge to his boxers -- they're royal blue -- then slipping beneath the elasticised band -- she paid for them along with the rest of his wardrobe -- and it's his turn to groan as her palm wraps around him -- so is this her change?

Cynicism fades as arousal sharpens towards culmination. One arm keeps her locked in a tight embrace, fingertips trailing across her collarbone; the other dances an erotic pattern on her core, twirling her faster and faster towards acme. She's falling, spinning, floating and...

Her own touch falters briefly, eyes suddenly closing, as his fingers pause at the last possible moment, stilling their frenetic pace. For a terribly long second she's frozen there, balanced on the wire-thin edge of satisfaction and frustration. A choked gasp hovers in her throat.

He caresses her. Slowly... whisper-softly... the lightest of touches. As she shatters in his arms, a silent exclaim stolen from her lips to his, there's a brief flash of coherency -- how can something that feels so right be so terribly, terribly wrong? -- and then there's just the white-hot flood of sensation; of blissful, all-encompassing release.

Ecstasy has never been more exquisite.

Snapshots follow. His features, strangely pensive and slightly drawn. Her breathing, erratic and shallow. His hands, still moving and caressing. Her skin, heated and sensitive. His eyes, dark and amber-flecked. Her fingers, warming and stroking his flesh. 

His boxers are discarded -- her efforts or his? -- as their bodies slip closer. A sheen of sweat glistens on her flesh, sliding them nearer still. Silence continues but that's okay. All barriers -- material, physical, verbal -- have vanished completely; even more okay. Her thighs part as he moves between them, his hand moving to brush a cascade of hair from her shoulder.

An inane commentary begins in her head, marking the motions that bring their bodies flush. Her skin is warming his; his lips still stealing her oxygen. Way okay. The internal monologue continues: this is it, this is really happening, this is the way, the _only_ way...

"No..."

The word is lost in his mouth, their tongues still tangling, and she can feel... She arches against him, gasping as the contact brings them that much closer to union.

"No."

Lost again and suddenly arousal is plummeting into fear; desire to terror. She wrenches her lips from his.

"No!"

Limbs entwined in passion now twist in sudden warfare. Confusion -- his _and_ hers -- reigns and she's begging now, pleading as she fights him.

" _No_! Please, no. Stop. _Stop_."

And he both is and isn't stopping. She can feel him against her, the length of him still rubbing insistently on her thigh. And maybe it's not an attempt to continue. Maybe it's just the result of him trying to calm her sudden agitation. But without freedom she can't accept the possibility.

"Let me go, please, just let me go, just stop..."

No panic in _his_ voice, rather strained bewilderment. "Cordelia? What's the mat -- "

Her hand tears itself free of his, catching his face, and the punch is ninety-nine percent luck -- she's never hit anyone before, not like that -- as his head jerks back. His grip loosens and, suddenly free, she pushes him off of her completely. He falls back awkwardly, bedcovers twisting beneath him, but she's blind to that as she scrambles off the bed.

Her balance is faulty and she stumbles to her knees almost immediately.

"Cordelia!"

She hears her name but replying is so not an option. She has to get away. Ricocheting senses find the darkest corner in the room unerringly and she hides there. A child's hidey-hole -- if I can't see you, then you can't see me -- as she clasps her knees to her chest, face roped with hair, body rocking just enough to make the tangled strands sway.

A mantra bubbles forth, the first since that night when she ran from Giles', and it's not a wish this time. Not about Buffy either. Just a mumbled confession; words spilt from kiss-swollen lips.

"... don't want... I don't... die... want to..."

Confusion responds. "Cordelia?"

"... I don't want to die."

  


* * *

  


No silence, just fractured exposition. No rented breathing either, now that passion has waned to something entirely different. Sunlight trickles weakly around the edges of the curtains, dimming the room, lengthening the shadows that paint her skin. Gooseflesh crawls and even though the room is cool she's not sure if the reaction is from temperature or emotion. Her arms wrap around her legs that little bit tighter, chin digging into her knees with every recitation.

"... I don't... die..."

Time is sharp, cutting through the haze of post-eros with a bitter sting. With every throb of her heart, with every word torn from bruised lips, she unconsciously counts the seconds and minutes. She knows how long she's been sitting there, feels it deep inside, and if she can stop her mantra -- even if it's only for a moment -- she'll verbalise the span.

Or she'll start screaming.

"... want... to die..."

Which is probably why she's sticking to those same five words; over and over and OVER again.

"... I _don't_ want to die..."

"No dying -- got it." Angel's voice, tense and hard, cuts across her words but does not break them. Her endless cycle continues, as does Angel's interruption. "Any chance you could not die in _silence_?"

"... I don't want..."

"To die. Yes, I _know_."

He's angry and she's not surprised. If she'd done this to one of her boyfriends in Sunnydale she'd probably be modelling as the poster-girl for attempted Date Rape. Hell, with the exception of maybe Xander, 'attempt' wouldn't even factor into it. And would it have been rape? She'd asked for it, initiated it, _wanted_ it. Wanted Angel's touch, Angel's lips, Angel's body. Wanted his skin on hers, his flesh _in_ hers...

A shudder slips between her bones, trembling her curled form. Not waned then. The passion is still there, rippling under her skin; an ache for more. Angel, she decides then, is an addiction.

"I don't want to die."

"If you don't shut up..."

An idle, incomplete threat -- she hopes. Or does she? Her thoughts tangle briefly, triple guesses on her second ones, and then settle back on the reassuring cadence of her mantra.

"I don't want to die."

More commentary from the peanut gallery. "Keep talking and what you want won't matter."

"I don't _want_ to die." It's almost petty to respond like that, to argue through emphasis. For a moment she feels a need to force the words, her mantra, away and say...

Say what? That she's sorry? She is, but somehow she doubts that Angel would find comfort in that. That she wishes things could be different? That she could change things? Hell -- that's her greatest desire. But would Angel understand that response? She thinks yes, but -- then again -- would Angel want to hear it?

What _does_ Angel want?

"I don't want to die."

No, that's her want.

"I don't want to die."

Still her.

"I don't -- "

"So _don't_!" Angel's in front of her suddenly, crouched and angry; still naked but then so is she so who really cares? Her thoughts subdivide unconsciously and a part of her would love to know how he does it, how that vamp-stealth, quick-moving trick of his works. The rest is more concerned with pretending not to see the rage in his eyes. " _Don't_ die. Stop acting like you're choiceless in the matter. Like this has all been decided for you and -- "

"But it has."

For a moment they're both too shocked to say anything. Well, she is. Maybe he's just grateful that's she stopped saying those five words. _Her_ five words. Absently she congratulates herself on not screaming.

"I'm meant to be dead," she whispers, forcing the confession while her mantra's on apparent hiatus. "Everyone else -- " No need to name them, their gravestones are already ordered. " -- died and I was meant to die too. I get that." To her horror she feels tears stinging -- who ordered the sentimentality? she's on a diet for crying out loud! -- and she blinks rapidly. "Things weren't meant to be like this. Not like this reality, and not with me alive in it. I _get_ that."

Angel looks like he's going to say something -- and more than likely it'll be profound, if not sympathetic -- so she continues before he can. Profundity has no place in her epiphany. Neither does sympathy.

"My father gets it too. That's why he told me to go home. All the Scoobies die in Sunnydale -- that's how this story goes, after all, how the episode is scripted." And she thought _Angel_ was going to be profound? Huh. "But being here... in LA... with you... waiting..." Her eyes never leave his. A locked gaze, the stalemate of his rage and her resolve. "... it was too much. I thought -- I thought that if I waited long enough I'd find a loophole, another escape. But there wasn't one. There was only me, and you, and inevitability, and then I thought that if I... if we..."

Made love? Had sex? Did the nasty? The horizontal tango?

Made with the wild-monkey-love?

Shut up, Xander.

"... then it wouldn't be so bad. You'd finish what he -- they -- started only _you'd_ get it right. No more waiting, no more illusions of choice. You evil, me with a fanged throat -- my reality _and_ yours: both back to the way they should be."

She thinks, not for the first time, that this is how she remembers Angel: as evil. Sure there are memories of him helping her, of him being one of her 'potential's', but those images are old; faded.

More current are the ones of fear, and terror, and of his body colliding into hers... lifting them both from the ground with such force that she has no choice but to cling to him tightly... their forms hitting the earth so hard that his lips, his teeth, are ever-so-close to hers, to her neck...

 _That_ , in the end, is how she remembers Angel.

He's her attempted murderer.

"The script would have to be rewritten, of course, but only slightly. The new tag would read: all the Scoobies _from_ Sunnydale die. Same show, different scene." She attempts a nod but her chin is still welded to her knees. "I could handle that."

Angel speaks and, this time, she lets him. "And me?"

She licks her lips, once, his eyes instinctively drawn to them, and despite the rage -- or perhaps because of it -- his gaze darkens with what she KNOWS is arousal. "Oh what a twisted web..." she recites sotto voce, eyelashes lowering until her gaze is half-shuttered. "If dying was my only option then I wanted it to mean something. Heading back to Sunnydale... allowing some nameless vamp or beastie-of-the-week to eat my intestines? That's no way for a Chase to die."

And she thought Angel's voice was tense _before_? "But I am?"

Honestly? "Yes."

He doesn't seem to have a reply to that so after a moment she elaborates.

"You're an outer-ring Scoobie, just like me. A temporary survivor of a Hell called 'reality', just like -- " she pauses, suddenly aware that she's lying. Misrepresenting her motives at the very least. "Screw it," she decides abruptly, a bitter smile twisting her lips. "You're _Angel_. I'm _Cordelia_. Dying by you... more specifically, in your arms... well, let's just say that I could think of no better revenge. Xander hated you and Buffy hated me and both of them screwed up my life royally. He dumped me and failed to kill me. She made my life hell when she was in it and more so when she wasn't. Fucking them over by fucking you?" She nods properly this time. "It was the perfect, most meaningful, way to die."

"I spent," Angel's voice is low, dark, "over a hundred and fifty years killing and torturing people whose only misfortune was that they had met me. Another hundred years was spent trying desperately not to give a damn about the previous hundred and fifty. Three years ago I decided to change all that, to try and atone for my infinite sins. A town full of people... people I wanted to save... yet instead of helping them, all I could do was watch them die. Your Xander and Willow tortured me, your Buffy couldn't overlook what I was, and for the past week I've had you stringing me along -- up and down at random -- like I'm some damned puppet."

Words like knives pierce her skin, drawing blood, and she forces herself not to flinch from the sting.

"Tell me, Cordelia -- who's worse? Your 'friends', for deliberately making me suffer? Or you, who just doesn't care?"

"I care," she responds quietly.

"About yourself," he shoots back viciously. "About what I can do for you... to you. I already cry for those I couldn't save -- why on earth would I want to cry for _you_?" The briefest of lulls, a weighted pause. "My God -- have you _always_ been this selfish?"

She smiles, a thousand memories quickly flashing through her mind, and nods honestly. "Yes."

Angel looks disgusted and though a part of her flinches from the opinion, the rest of her _is_ pleased with it. She's not going to die.

Their gazes break apart, his head bowing, and she takes the reprieve to glance down at her hands. Her arms are still banded around her knees and her fingers, white-knuckled and pale, will no doubt leave bruises where they grip her flesh. A cavalier mentality causes her to shrug this observation aside -- what's one more bruise? her body reads like a POW's medical chart anyway -- and when Angel suddenly reaches out to her, she's not even that surprised.

Gentleness is gone now, his fingers adamantine as they push through her hair. Chipped fingernails catch on absent strands of hair and his palm grates as it molds to her cheek. Was it only moments ago that this hand brought her pleasure? Caressed her so tenderly? Now his touch seems so distant, so impersonal. Hard.

"So why'd you stop?" he clips out, voice so bitter that she almost recoils from the sourness. "If you want me to kill you so bad..." His hand moves from her cheek to her neck, tightening almost painfully. "Why stop?"

It takes so little effort to pry her fingers from their locked grip that she's surprised she didn't do it before. Her hand follows his outstretched limb, nails skimming his arm until she's covering the same hand that could so very easily snap her neck in two. Her fingers splay over his, her palm warming his cool flesh.

"I'm meant to be dead," she reminds him quietly, "because that's the way it is. Because that's what's expected. The Scoobie trend, the Scoobie style... and I thought I was okay with that." Her smile is soft as she recaptures his gaze. "But I'm no-one's sheep, Angel. No-one's trained monkey. I _set_ the styles -- I don't follow them. And deep down? I _don't_ want to die."

Leaning forward -- hey, the rest of her limbs still work too, whaddya know! -- she presses her lips to his. He doesn't respond to the kiss, not this time, but that's okay. She didn't really expect him too.

Her hand, the one that is holding his even as he holds her, tightens and pulls away his limb. Leaning back now she offers him another smile -- it's unreturned but that's okay too -- and then she's pushing herself to her feet, standing tall before him. For a moment she stares down at him, the smile hovering on her lips, and then she reaches out, brushing her fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry," she breathes quietly.

After another span of silence she pulls away; stepping around him. As she gathers a change of clothes from the closet, she waits for him to say something. When he doesn't, she just shrugs a little and heads into the bathroom.

An hour later she emerges; her hair styled just right, her makeup applied to perfection. Gathering her purse she heads towards the door, fingers absently reaching for her sunglasses.

"Where are you going?"

Pausing at the door, her eyes close briefly, a smile firming on her lips as she remembers her shopping list -- one new bikini, possibly three -- and her plans for lunch. Sartian's do an excellent chicken-caesar salad. Turning slightly, she looks back to where he's still crouched on the floor, eyes apparently caught on the shadows that no longer hide her.

"Shopping."

A humourless chuckle echoes. "Everyone dies, Cordelia," he murmurs, his voice so quiet that she has to strain to hear him. "Even you."

She nods, even though he's not looking at her, and opens the door. "Yeah," she agrees, slipping on her sunglasses, "but not today."

  


* * *

  


Despite the confidence she'd projected to Angel when leaving the hotel room, actually _being_ outside... away from the room... away from him... is harder then she'd imagined. For almost thirty minutes she sits in the hotel lobby, staring at the glimpses of street and sunlight, trying to summon the confidence -- the _courage_ \-- necessary to leave its assumed safety.

You _can_ do this, she thinks firmly. You're Cordelia Chase: _nothing_ scares you.

Which is a lie since just about _everything_ scares her these days. Returning to Sunnydale, vampires, dying... all of which, in her mind, can be considered one in the same.

One of the elevators oft to the left dings softly, the doors sliding open as a young couple spills into the lobby. She watches as they move towards the front doors, giggling and whispering; his arm is around her shoulders, her body turned in towards his, and there are smiles on both their faces. They look happy; in love. More than likely, she muses, they're here on some kind of romantic getaway -- their honeymoon, perhaps? -- and this is the first time they've stepped out of their room since they arrived.

An epitome of happiness; she wonders how long it will take for him to cheat on her with another woman. Will her smile still be as bright, as loving, after a rebar that-never-was has pierced her abdomen? How long will it take for him to break her heart and throw away the pieces? Will she still look as happy when she's left to sit alone in the lobby while he stays upstairs?

Her thoughts freeze sharply. What the -- ?

Flabbergasted, she watches as the couple leaves the lobby -- their smiles, and their happiness, firmly in place -- the two strangers completely unaware that as she's watched them, and mused on their relationship with more than a touch of cynicism, she's had some bizarre, epiphany-like, not to mention completely _untrue_ , revelation.

'Cause she and Angel are not, repeat _not_ , a couple. They're not even close to being a couple. _Xander_ and Angel have a better chance at being a couple than she and Angel do... and she's _so_ going to forget she _ever_ thought up that little statement... but the point is -- she and Angel are not a couple.

Couples are people who make each other smile, who make each other happy. They generate feelings of love and bliss and safety for each other. Couples do couply things -- like taking care of each other and holding each other. Kissing and hugging and all the other romancy type stuff. They care about each other.

She, as Angel pointed out only a couple of hours ago, cares only about herself.

Shaken even more so now by her thoughts, she nevertheless stands and resolutely -- if not a little jerkily -- heads towards the front doors. The sunlight outside hits her with a harsh glare and she flinches instinctively as she takes those last few steps from the Lobby entrance to the sidewalk. She fumbles with her sunglasses, adjusting them slightly, and smooths back a hair that hasn't really fallen out of place.

A taxi pulls up as she stands there, trying to decide whether to go shopping or restauranting first, and as soon as its previous fares have exited she ducks inside.

"Where to lay-dee?" the driver asks, voice accented, and she stares at him in the review mirror, mind churning.

Sartian's or shopping? Rodeo Drive or lunch? "East seventy-fifth," she orders after a moment, in a voice that doesn't quite sound like her own, with directions that have little to do with bikini's or salads. "Corner of Montgomery."

The driver nods, the taxi pulling away from the kerb, and from the corner of her eye she watches as the hotel slips out of sight.

Not a couple.

  


* * *

  


As the taxi makes it way through the streets of Los Angeles, she tries to distract herself with thoughts that are probably better left to philosophers. She thinks about Faith -- which is really weird 'cause usually she's more than happy to _not_ think about the slightly psychotic Slayer -- and she wonders if Faith even _is_ a Slayer in this reality.

Did Buffy still die in this reality? In her reality, Buffy died by the Master's hand -- which is what has happened in _this_ reality, but she's thinking about the first Buffy-Master-Death-Scene that took place on the night of the Spring Fling, and not the more recent take two -- and that brought Little Miss Foreign-Slayer to Sunnydale. Was Kendra still made a Slayer in this reality? Did she die too? If she didn't, then what's the deal with Faith?

She thinks about Faith -- who has a violence overload in her pep -- and then tries to stop _these_ thoughts when she remembers Xander's fascination with Slayers. His overt appreciation for females other than her really should have clued her in to his wandering eyes... and hands... and lips...

"Thank God," she breathes out with relief, the taxi slowing to a stop in front of the familiar building, her thoughts following a similar path. Mind clear, she rifles through her wallet for the fare and is forced to hand over her credit card. Damn bellhop -- wanting cash for all his blood deliveries. Damn Angel -- for needing the blood in the first place.

Damn her -- just because.

She thinks 'note to self -- get more cash before heading back home', and then shudders with horror at this slip. The hotel is _not_ home. The hotel is simply a hotel. Erases this thought completely before it can merge with her previous one about not being Slot A in a particular coupledom that shall remain nameless, and takes her credit card back from the driver.

As she gets out of the vehicle she considers ordering him to wait here for her. Doesn't get a chance too, however, as the driver pulls back out into the traffic before she's even finished shutting the door. She stands there, annoyed at this rude departure, and finds some comfort in the fact that his back door is now not-quite-closed.

She doesn't look at the building name as she enters the Lobby, refuses to even pause for a moment as she heads to the elevators. Hesitation could lead to second thoughts or a changed mind about being here and after the week she's just had, that would be bad. Very, very bad.

This is going to be quick and painful. Emphasis, hopefully, on the quick part.

She ignores Ms Morgan as she breezes through the outer office and towards the inner one, not even bothering to respond to the woman's flustered calls of "you can't go in there!" because it should be obvious she IS going in there. Throwing open her father's door, she glances dismissively at the duo of business suits who are seated opposite her father.

"Out," she orders.

"Cordelia!" her father's roar of disapproval is loud, furious and swiftly ignored.

As she taps her foot impatiently, the plush carpeting muffling the sound but the body language oh-so-clear, she can just see her father's diary open to today's date on his desk. For a moment it doesn't even register -- December 24th -- but when it _does_ register, she smiles slowly.

Her father's now making fast apologies to the suits as they file out of the room but she's too busy smiling, brain frothing, to really pay attention. She thought it would take chicken and a two-piece to find her answer, her solution.

It's nice to be wrong sometimes.

When the office door shuts and her father approaches, a rant already begun, she increases the wattage of her smile and leans up to air-kiss him impersonally on both cheeks.

"Merry Christmas, Daddy."

His tirade falters with surprise and, as he gapes, she lets her smile turn hard.

"I've come for my present."

  


* * *

  


Later, as she makes her way back into the hotel and up to their -- _her_ \-- room, she's both happy and not happy.

There's an extreme sensation of pleasure in the fact that she's managed to spend an afternoon outside... in the sun... around people... and not get killed. Not to mention the fact that she's done so _and_ managed -- finally -- to get her life back in hand and in order. Yep, definite joy there.

What's not so great is the fact that for the past hour she's been on edge, nerves taut and senses strained. Sunset has yet to even peek over the horizon -- the sky still light and bright and all kinds of good sun-shiney-ness -- but her neck's sore anyway. She's pretty sure she's got whiplash from the frequent glances behind her -- anybody there? nope. not yet -- and that's not exactly made better by the constant -- mythical -- ache of already torn flesh.

Her life's back -- which is fantastic -- but if this is how it's going to be every time the clock hits late afternoon, she's going to be spending the rest of said life on a psychiatrist's lounge.

Now _there's_ a lifestyle statement she's just dying not to make.

What's even worse than that is the sensation of relief that hits her as she waits for the bellhop carrying her shopping to open the door to her hotel room. Which is second only to the fact that when she enters -- and discovers Angel _not in there_ \-- she's no longer relieved and no longer even the slightest bit happy.

Goddamnit! Embracing a fury that will hopefully extinguish all other emotions, she tosses a tip to the bellhop who's placing her bags near the small table in the room, glaring pointedly when he takes more than a split-second to exit, and throws her handbag down onto the bed.

"Great, just great," she mutters viciously as she stalks around the room absently. "One measly little fight and he flees -- that's just freaking _perfect_!"

With a flourish that almost rips the drapes from the window, she smothers the room in sunshine. For a long moment she stands there, hands clenched on her hips, features drawn in anger as she takes in the pre-twilight view. Her reflection echoes faintly back with the vista.

"Damn you, Angel," she snarls, "you leaving was never part of our deal."

Which is horribly funny in all sorts of ways because with him leaving, the rest of the night's itinerary just got a hell of a lot easier. She should be _glad_ that he's gone, _pleased_ that she doesn't have to put up with him anymore. No more forced co-habitation -- her life's back online so she doesn't need a bodyguard anymore _anyway_ , despite what her brand-new fears are saying -- and no more vivid see-sawing as they fight for some kind of balance in the emotional mess that has become their partnership.

Yep, she should be over-the-moon- _happy_ about Angel being gone. 

Turning, she walks away from the window, fingers trembling just a little as she reaches for her shopping, her anger numbing with an unexpected realisation.

Her reflection was crying.

  


* * *

  


She's in bed when Angel returns to their room. Not quite asleep but still drowsy enough for her thoughts to be pleasantly dulled, she watches him as she curls around a spare pillow. "I thought you'd gone," she murmurs.

He doesn't look at her as he makes his way to the ever-present chair-and-lamp near the window. She waits for him to find a book -- which he won't read, but appearances _are_ everything -- and sit down but he breaks routine by simply standing at the window.

She hugs the pillow a little tighter to her body, shifting her head slightly so that she can stare at him better. "Angel?"

A statue, he replies quietly. "I left, yes."

"But you came back."

"Yes."

"Why?" Gentle confusion coats the tone and sleepy thoughts flicker with what his answer will be, each painted in shades of emotion that she doesn't really want to feel -- let alone acknowledge -- for this vampire.

He doesn't answer her, or rather, he doesn't answer her question. "How was your shopping?"

No sarcasm in his voice, nothing but monotony, and she answers instinctively, automatically, those slumbering thoughts dissipating. This is standard for her, after all. People always -- and _should_ always -- inquire about her day, about her activities. Her life, she knows, is everyone's number one priority. "Fair. Did some Christmas shopping and got a manicure. Ziggy's just had some to-die-for leather gloves arrive in from Milan so I bought a couple of pairs."

Angel makes no further comment so she stretches a little in the bed and continues speaking.

"Saw one of the cheaper Baldwin's at lunch so I made sure our path's didn't cross for too long and before I did all that, I went and blackmailed my father." She curls her lips into a smile at that last part to hide the pain it evokes.

He stiffens then, body tense. "You're going back to Sunnydale?"

She pfft's easily. "Just _who_ , exactly, fried your brain-cells 'cause I'd _love_ to send them a thank-you note for doing such a bang up job." She brushes a strand of hair off her cheek. "I said blackmail, Angel, not 'forced acquiescence'." She shifts again, limbs stretching fluidly beneath the sheets. Nonchalance paints her explanation. "In exchange for my silence over his lucrative practice of never paying his taxes -- something he really shouldn't have kept paperwork for in our safe back in Sunny-D -- I'm getting early control of my trust fund and full parental emancipation. Not only can I now vote, but I can now _live_ to vote."

If she hit his shoulders with a rebar right now, she decides absently, the rebar would snap. In two. It's a somewhat-pleasant thought and she lets it linger.

"But I highly doubt that you have any interest whatsoever in how my day was, or how screwed up my family has become, so why don't you just tell me why you came back." She arches an eyebrow that he's not even looking at. "Well?"

His shoulders slump slightly. "You didn't tell me I could."

She frowns. "I didn't tell you could what?"

A barely-there sigh -- which, as always, wars against the fact that vampires don't _need_ to sigh... or breathe... -- as he stares down at the city. "That I could leave," he answers.

She blinks, finally discarding the pillow as she pushes herself to a sitting position on the bed. A touch of amusement decorates her voice. "Do you _always_ do what people tell you to do?"

She watches as his hand rises to press against the glass. "I never used to."

"Then why..."

"Willow said puppies should do what they're told." He turns from the window, catching her with resolute features that shouldn't be showing the signs of cracking. Shouldn't, but _are_. "She trained me to..." his voice fractures and the sentence is never finished.

For the briefest moment she's confused -- when did Willow ever call Angel a puppy? -- before remembering that here, in this reality, Willow was a vampire. Who tortured Angel. Her eyes close briefly and when she opens them again, her gaze is soft.

"Willow's dead, Angel -- you're not a puppy anymore. You can do whatever you want to do... and you don't have to do anything you _don't_ want to do," she promises, "not anymore."

He chuckles harshly, shaking his head. "So says the woman determined to keep me on a leash -- do this and don't do that, protect me and don't touch me, kiss me and don't kill me..."

She blinks again, surprised by how fast his apparent depression has mutated into anger, and fists the bedcovers to cover her sudden unease. She should have stuck to the original itinerary for the night. She should never have stayed here. "The only leash I hold is the one you gave me," she shoots back, seeking shelter in verbal confidence.

When he comes forward to sit on the edge of the bed, form leaning in towards hers, she has to force herself to stay put, to not back away from him.

"Then stop tugging on it."

Her heart races for an instant and then stops without warning, a weird plummeting sensation that seems to rock her world right off its axis. And even though she _knows_ she should just apologise for whatever pain he thinks she's caused him, and make with the nice-and-conciliatory-and-I-mean-you-no-harm type vocabulary, her lips curl into a taunting smirk.

"Make me."

  


* * *

  


Angel is a vampire.

She never really got that before. Sure, he drinks blood, and is allergic to sunlight, and all those other stereotypes -- cliches she's seen brought to life time and time again -- but it's never meant anything before: that's just Angel. V8-drinking, night-owl, empty-mirror, Angel.

Hell, even when he attacked her in Sunnydale, that wasn't really a _vampire_ thing, that was just a her-boyfriend's-best-friend's-ex-trying-to-kill-her kind of thing. Her attempted murderer... species irrelevant.

But Angel _is_ a vampire.

She gets that now.

In fact, truth be told, she's getting a _lot_ of him now.

If she was wearing pyjamas -- and she has a vague recollection that she _was_ \-- their existence has been stripped from her memory. Flesh alone coats her body now, and not just any flesh, but his. Angel's. A painted shadow that maps every curve and hollow, that follows every arch and press of her form.

Last time it was all about foreplay. Slow touches, sweeping caresses; seduction strung til release was an aching tautness, a pained ecstasy. Lazy fingers and moist kisses and breathless moans. Anticipation greater than the promise of completion.

This time it's skin meeting skin. It's Angel's body pushing hers into the mattress and hers pushing back until the friction is enough to cause sparks. But fire is never slow, a bonfire never lingers, and flames are licking her senses, and Angel's, until they're blazed into a frenzied passion that leaves no room for right or wrong or this-should-never-happen.

An amalgamation has begun that she may never survive but, by God, she'll burn blissfully.

She feels like she's taken a breath and all of this is happening before the exhale can even be considered. Before a _lot_ of things can be considered. But Angel's a _vampire_ and consideration just isn't part of the demonic vocabulary.

She knows this for a fact: she once asked Giles.

A brief thought steams through her mind -- Angel, sex, bad -- as his cock slips against her once, twice -- she's so wet; she's never felt so ready so quickly before -- but is derailed before it can even fully form as he plunges into her. Her mouth opens to moan, to breathe, to cry out... but nothing escapes.

Soundlessly she arches against him; cored and full and ohgod...

Hard and fast thrusts, his body slapping against hers, friction taking the place of tender caresses. Desperate fingernails dig into his shoulders, piercing the corded muscles as he slams into her. It should hurt -- and she knows that later, after, she'll be sore, so sore -- but right now she can only feel the pleasure. Can only gasp as she's swept into a whirlwind of eroticism.

"Damn you..."

The utterance is torn from Angel's lips and she tries to keep her gaze on him as he fucks her into oblivion. His eyes are closed, smothering yellow, but the ridges and fangs that mark his kind are vivid. She wants to scream but she can't quite decide if terror or pleasure should fuel the exclamation.

"... damn you..."

She orgasms so suddenly, so sharply, that for a moment she wonders if she blanked out most of their union. Surely there was more foreplay, more seduction, before this internal explosion? There wasn't -- her climax simply accelerated to match the pace of the desire -- but she thinks there must have been.

"... damnyoudamnyou _damnyou_..."

With a final series of thrusts, of frenzied pounding, Angel shudders against her still trembling form; emptying himself and filling her. For a moment he remains above her, body tense, before his limbs fracture and crack and he collapses into her arms.

Her fingernails leave his shoulder blades, scraping faintly as they skim the marble flesh. His face is buried in her neck, cheek rubbing against the wounds already there, and she lets a tremor slip along her bones. Definitely fear now; terror -- no pleasure.

She considers pushing him off her; wonders if she'll have time to find a stake and a cross before anything bad can happen. Which is a horrible thing to think about when what just happened felt so wonderful. But a whisper-soft whimper duets briefly with her still-harsh breathing and thoughts of demonic protection become gossamer, irrelevant.

Her hands press tentatively against his back, an unsure soothing as she feels him weep against her collarbone.

"Damn us both, Angel," she murmurs into the sex-heavy air, his weight blanketing her body, "'cause if you kill me now, I swear to God I'll dust your ass."

A ridiculous threat and Angel makes no comment as her arms hold him tight. She exhales quietly -- finally! -- eyes wide in the darkness as she stares at the ceiling and he cries within her embrace.

"Damn us both to hell."

  


* * *

  


She stands at the window, staring down at the glittering city, fingers absently pinpointing the neon stars and streetlight moons reflected on the glass. She can just make out her reflection -- the curve of her cheekbone, sliced by far-away headlight; a spotlighted billboard sheening her eyes. The bed sheet is wrapped loosely around her body, a hand clasped protectively to her breast.

"When do you turn evil?"

A tired scoff answers the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question and she calls for a judge's ruling.

"Well?"

"Maybe the evil quota for this room is already full."

She absorbs the soft insult without even flinching -- yay her -- and turns, letting the sheet slip and slide over her form. He's deceptively relaxed as he lies on the rumpled bedcovers, naked and beautiful and -- for the moment at least -- hers, and she considers the possibility that this is just lust.

It isn't, not really, but she considers it anyway.

"I don't understand," her admittance is reluctant but true, "I mean, I know the deal -- _your_ deal -- 'cause, you know, I watched it happen." Angel's eyes drift shut as she calmly freaks, her hip now pressing against the windowsill. "Technicolour, widescreen, 3D-with-digital-sound and one of those cool little remotes that gave me a zoom-in-close front-seat to the blockbuster that was Buffy's life. And," she exhales sharply with a shake of her head, "howdy! I had the best front-row seats money should never buy."

With his eyes closed, and frame all relaxed-like, Angel looks dead to the world which, unfunnily enough, ain't that far from the truth.

"Sex plus you equals bad -- standard Sunnydale math." She pauses briefly to shrug and half-smile. "I'm good with math, you know; hell, add a dollar sign to the figures and I'm almost a genius -- that comes from having had so much practice with it."

She shifts away from the sill, releasing the pressure from her hip, and turns to stare back at the sleeping city. Is LA like New York? Does it not sleep at night?

Quiet repetition spills from her lips. "When do you turn evil?"

He sighs, tiredness rampant in that very human action. "I don't know," he answers eventually and her eyes close, blanketing the city skyline with darkness. "I really don't, okay? I mean, until you showed up and started going on about my curse having an expiration date I didn't even think it was _possible_ to lose my soul."

Twinkle, twinkle little star, she thinks inanely, the childhood rhyme tripping through her thoughts like a faulty jackhammer. How I wonder what you are...

"Angelus..." She opens her eyes and a grin tracks its way across her features as she glances over her shoulder. "If I say that name three times will you -- he -- appear? Like the Candyman?"

He's not smiling but she thinks there _may_ be a trace of amusement in his voice. "I don't have a reflection."

She lets the smile widen momentarily in response, eyes running over the hands that stroked her, the legs that parted her, the lips that kissed her, and then turns back to the window. The hand at her breast tightens. She drops her gaze briefly, focusing on the white knuckles and tense fingers that are cupping the cross to her heart, and then sighs.

"Too late now, I suppose," she thinks out loud, "worrying about Angelus..."

She hears him shift on the bed, the remaining covers rasping against his skin. "Is this where you mouth off adages about locking the barn after the horse has bolted?"

She frowns. "What barn?" There was a barn? She acknowledges that certain horse euphemisms might be appropriate in describing what happened earlier, but a barn?

"Never mind," he sighs, so she doesn't.

She's not paying attention when he moves again. She's still worrying about Angelus -- even though she knows it's too late -- and thinking that sleeping with Angel was probably _the_ most stupid thing she's ever done -- see ya, Xander-Dating, you've been usurped. She's wondering why he hasn't gone evil -- what's that saying... about butterflies in Africa and monsoons in China? -- and doing not just a little internal cursing about changing her mind -- hadn't she clearly stated that there was gonna be no more death-wishing? So when she feels him suddenly standing behind her -- an invisible spectre at her back -- she's a little surprised.

"You gonna use that?"

The cross. She doesn't look down at it again, doesn't seek confirmation that that's what he's referring to. Just shrugs a little, lets the sheet-toga slip off one shoulder. "Maybe."

His hands move to her hips, lightly resting there, a spectre turned substantial. "I've never been a eunuch, Cordelia," he whispers and she lets her eyes close as the words echo along her collarbone. His lips follow their path, lightly tracing carbon copies along her skin.

"Did I say you were?"

"You thought it." She doesn't deny that. From Buffy's perspective -- and for a long time, that was the only perspective she let herself view -- Angel has always been the Slayer's. And no one else's. That's partly why she wants him so much.

Revenge is hard to forego.

His lips reach her neck, mouth nuzzling the tendons and muscles corded there. One hand rises from her waist to brush her hair out of the way, cleaving a path so that his caresses can continue uninterrupted. The sheet draped over her other shoulder, guided by his fingers, follows the same descent that the first had. For a moment the bedding defies complete gravity, caught at her chest by the fisted cross. But when his mouth latches onto her neck, opening and suckling the skin there, she sighs. Her hand pulls away just enough for the sheet to pool at their feet and she leans back against him.

Her eyes open, focusing on a sleeping LA, and her shoulder arches closer to his mouth. "Isn't this the part where you tell me how much you want me, how you've always wanted me?" she questions lightly, wryness allying with pleasure.

He makes a sound that might be a chuckle, lips leaving her neck with a light popping sound. Man, she thinks distractedly, that's gonna be some hickey. "When I do, will you then return the sentiment?"

Her sarcasm matched, she concedes silently. His hand moves back to her hip, palms framing her waist. Teeth replace lips and her neck is soon peppered with a nibbling touch that -- for once -- doesn't invoke memories of Xander and Willow and vampirism.

She swallows hard and lets her body brush against his, back sliding against a marble chest, ass nestling against a hardening cock. Her thoughts dissolve as Mistake Number -- what's she up to now, two? three? more? -- begins; senses steamrolled into unadulterated lust.

Slowly his hands begin to move, carving around her hips. One snakes across her abdomen, smoothing hazy designs across the soft skin there, while the other slips lower, stealing across her thighs. She exhales quietly, head tilting back to rest on his shoulder, stance widening without hesitation or prompting. When his fingers dance upwards again, burying into the dampening curls, she shudders.

"So what's changed?" he rasps suddenly, caresses slowing to an aching pace.

"Huh?"

"You, me; sex, bad... I thought you didn't want this anymore?"

She blinks, surprised by the unexpected questioning. "I never said that I didn't want _this_ ," she answers slowly, "just that I didn't want to die."

"But isn't _this_ ," their emphasis on that innocuous word is almost amusing, she thinks, "equal to death in your reality?"

"No. Well, yes, but -- " her denial, or maybe agreement, falters as his words slowly sink in. 'Your reality', he said, 'your'. As in, she thinks, not _mine_. "You don't believe me," she whispers then, floored. "All this time... and you don't even believe me."

"Believe what?" There's mild confusion, and maybe a touch of aggravation that she's changed the subject, yet his fingers keep on amusing themselves with her pliant form.

"That sex can turn you evil, that the world used to be a better place, a safer and happier place..." Her head tilts on his shoulder, features upturned to stare into his. "You and me and the Scoobies... everything I used to know, and foolishly ruined, and -- "

His hands pause briefly, eyes just a little narrowed as they return her gaze. "The only life -- the only _reality_ \-- I've ever known in this one," he cuts her off gently, "so do I believe you when you say all that stuff, talk about this magical world where my only concerns seem to be keeping it in my pants when I'm around the Slayer and checking to see if I have blood-breath in the mornings?"

She nods, breathlessly, and is strangely disappointed -- crushed? -- when he shakes his head.

"Then no, I don't believe you." A beat of silence. "I'd like to believe it, Cordelia," he offers quietly, lowering his cheek, and then his lips, to her forehead, "but the life you've described is alien to the one I've lived. It's a dream, maybe, or a fantasy -- those hundred years in hell, not included -- and it sounds..." he pauses then, eyes closing, "nice. But I don't believe that it was real."

"Then why -- " she clears her throat, a little unsure as to why it's cloyed in the first place, " -- have you stayed here?" 'With me' is the addendum she refuses to add.

"Because you're paying me too," he answers simply.

"That's it?" escapes before she can censor it and it's not hurt in her voice, really it's not -- it's confusion. Before he said that he _couldn't_ leave her, that she hadn't given him permission too -- a hidden statement that he had become hers and hers alone -- and now it's only about the money?

"No," he admits, "but that's the only reason I understand."

She thinks about that for a long moment, finds the hurt -- imagined hurt? -- dissipating, and finally smiles. "I get that," she offers quietly. "Because this?" She waves her free hand, gesturing to their bodies, to the fingers that are still absently teasing her damp flesh, "is... nice. And I don't understand why I changed my mind, or why you're not following the rules of my memories by turning evil, or anything else, really, but I do understand that being here -- like _this_ \-- is nice."

He smiles then, a beautiful grin that spreads from ear to ear and the expression floors her. Astonished, she realises that this is the first time she's ever seen THIS Angel smile. She'd once received a smile -- or two -- over coffees at the Bronze, a Halloween cobweb backdropping his seat, but this Angel?

"Only nice?" he asks with a low purr that sends a shiver down her spine and she knows that if it weren't for that beautiful smile highlighting his features, she'd be worrying about Angelus again.

A flirtatious retort slips out instinctively. "Well, it was a lot nicer before you decided we needed a coffee break."

The barest hint of laughter, a half-formed chuckle, escapes his mouth and then she loses sight of that beautiful, beautiful smile as his head lowers to her shoulder-blade and his tongue laves a path to her neck. Sighing, she both relaxes and tenses against him once more; the arousal that had been held in stasis while they conversed quickly breaking free and rising once more.

His lips move to her ear, tongue tracing the whorls, teeth nipping at the lobe. She moves restlessly, one hand still clasping a cross to her chest, the other scraping nails along his forearm as his palm cools the toned flesh of her abdomen. With a disjointed rocking, her ass massages the length of his cock and he grunts at the erratic pressure. She echoes the wordless exclaim absently.

Fingers slippery with the fluids pooling between her thighs skim higher, scraping uneven fingernails -- hasn't the guy ever heard of a manicure? -- against her clit and her lower body bucks at the unexpected caress. With the sudden shift, his cock slips between her legs, an electrifying sensation arising as their bodies start to rock.

The hand on her abdomen keeps a steady pressure on her womb, lower fingers circling her clit over and over again and his cock slips back and forth over her center. From this angle, penetration is almost impossible and she undulates relentlessly, aching for something deeper. Ecstasy radiates slowly through her whole body and she releases his forearm to cup her own breast, fingers pinching and rolling the taut nipple restlessly.

"An-gel..." she moans softly, head lolling on his shoulder.

He releases her ear, returning to the sharp curve of her shoulder. Another grunt responds to her verbosity.

"More..."

Her whisper -- almost inaudible -- echoes between them. Hovers there. Waits. For what, exactly, she's not a hundred-percent sure. And she doesn't think he knows exactly what either, but even without knowing, his hands are back on her waist. Her body's gripped hard, allowing one final rough stroke of his chest on her back, his groin to her ass, before the LA lights spin. She gasps when the ice-cool glass of the window sears her skin, struggles to adjust to the temperature change and her head hits the pane. Her leg, guided by his hands, mobile by her own want, lifts and curls around his hip, trying to drag him closer.

A low growl reverberates from deep within his chest as her crucifix-laden hand keeps them apart. Her eyes, blurred with desire, focus on his. Lower bodies straining for closure, upper pushing for separation; a clasped cross their final barrier.

"Use that?" he half-questions, the repetition faulty with want.

She tears her gaze from his with difficulty, fingers loosening on the cross until it's visible, still unsure. Maybe, she had responded before. Is that her answer now? She's distracted by the feel of his palm sliding cautiously over the scarring burns on her arm and she pushes against the caress until her arm is outstretched, away from them both.

She tries to look at him again, thinks that maybe if she peers deep enough into his eyes she'll find her answer -- Angelus, Angel... come out, come out, whoever you are... -- but with the religious restriction gone he's tugging sharply on her body. Her lips are crushed against his without warning, mouth instinctively parting, leg draping completely around his hip.

He presses against her, she presses back, and with wild, somewhat messy, kisses, the cross floats from her fingers. She notices its descent and decides not to care.

Hard against her stomach, wet on his thigh, inevitability sees them rock into a more satisfying position. His cock slips inside her slowly at first, jolting home when she shifts hard. He grunts unintelligibly into her mouth, tongues still tangling, and she lopes her arms about his neck, fingers tightening around the soft strands of hair at his nape.

Hands on her waist have gravity disappearing as he pulls up her other leg, her back against the window providing balance. She moves with him, readjusting her weight, and her hold on his neck and shoulders tightens. A rhythm begins to emerge, disjointed and fractured and wonderful, with its quick thrusts and slow grinding. Her lips part from his reluctantly as oxygen becomes necessary and her head bangs back against the glass.

Eyes open again -- when did she close them? -- and as his mouth licks a path from her jaw to her throat, settling in the damp hollow above her collarbone, she lets her gaze slip sideways and focus on the stars and streetlights and neon billboards outside. They sway in and out of her vision and she has to keep reminding herself that their motion is an illusion -- it's her that's undulating.

"More," she gasps breathlessly, senses spiralling, and he growls against her skin. A hand leaves her waist, trailing up to capture a breast, palm framing the tender flesh, stroking and pinching and -- ohgod -- she shifts against him desperately. Pushing down, grinding hard, seeking the friction that will release the pressure building within her womb.

His hands return to her hips then, holding her firm against the window, and with his fingers tightening on the flesh there -- she's gonna have bruises, she thinks abstractedly -- and keeping her almost immobile, he intensifies his own movement. His cock slips out slowly, then slides back into the wet heat she's generating sharply; a frantic, purposeful rhythm. His pelvis grinds against hers with every upthrust, catching her clit with harsh friction, and she finds herself praying that the window won't break as her head cracks against it again and again.

She wants to fly apart and she wants to stay like this forever and she just wants to come and shatter and die and live and -- ohgod -- ohgod -- ohgod --

She fractures into a million pieces, starred and broken and whole, and she was wrong, she was right, and LA isn't sleeping, it's exploding, and oh no, that's just her --

"More," she groans again, unable to say anything else, somehow hopeful that that word will stand for everything she wants to say and everything she doesn't.

He thrusts hard, shuddering into his own release, and his lips and tongue are suckling vehemently on her throat still. Stars fall behind her eyes, a cosmic storm, and her body jerks disconnectedly with his. Frame hazy with lust she lets her legs uncurl from his hips, his hands holding her upright as she searches for balance. She's fading but that's okay, 'cause so is he, and his cock slips out of her as he sinks slowly. Lips trail from her neck to her chest -- cheek nuzzling sweat-damp breasts, tongue absently curling around pebbled areolae -- then lower.

Almost penitent before her now, his lips sink from her abdomen to her groin, a curious, almost experimental, lick finding her clit. She jerks hard, a wordless cry torn from her lips, body almost too sensitive for this extra stimulus. Drowsy eyes stare down into his, unsurprised to see the demon features but somewhat frightened too.

"More?" he rasps questioningly and her mouth goes dry. She knows what he wants.

Refusal so intense she feels weighted by it lopes around her senses, pinning her to the glass more effectively then his hands on her waist ever could. She knows what he wants and she doesn't want him to have it. Not now. Not ever. Yet her lips stay closed, her voice silent, and while she doesn't give him permission, neither does she verbalise her refusal.

His mouth scrapes across the tender flesh of her thigh, teeth sliding across smooth skin and even as she tenses -- thinks about lunging sideways and finding the cross that's still lying discarded on the floor, tangled in the edge of the sheet that had previously togaed her form -- his fangs extend, pierce, and sink.

She arches fluidly, back curling away from the ice-cool glass, thigh pressing into his grip. As if a deeper penetration could make it ache less. He adjusts his grip on her leg, hooking the limb up and over his shoulder, and she finds herself on tiptoes as she relies on his hands to maintain her balance. It hurts -- ohgod -- it hurts and with the pain there's a knife-edge of pleasure and -- ohgod -- she wants him to stop and never stop and --

Her vision hazes and her heart throbs, low and deep and hard, within her chest. Pins-and-needles flood her limbs, senses afire and tingling. The fading aftershocks of her climax rebuild and reflood; skin cooling and insides burning. She's terrified and she's aroused and this is _so_ wrong on so _many_ levels that it's almost -- it's almost --

She starts to float again, the stars outside whirling and twirling and spinning her round and around...

His cheek rasps against her thigh when he finally pulls back, pain and pleasure still spreading from the bite mark. "More," he concludes softly.

His lips are stained with her blood and she watches him lick it off, features melting back in human form. A part of her wants to kiss him, a part of her wants to stake him, and a part of her wants to define their relationship, make everything Waterford-crystal clear.

"This isn't love," she utters breathlessly, bones liquefied.

"No," he agrees, "it's not." And he's lying, she knows he is, but that's okay.

'Cause a part of her is too.

  


* * *

  


It's easier than she thought -- returning to hell. Left foot, right foot -- that's all it takes. No need to run, no need to crawl, just a tempered gait as she steps through the ornate gates that have seen more visitors than the children's park across the street.

A song trips from her lips, the lyrics as unknown to her as the artist and title, and it makes sense -- in a way that makes no sense -- that she'd sing a song she's never heard before. "Wrapped inside a twisted world, I can't decide," she pauses briefly, as though trying to remember the words -- which she can't because she never knew them -- and then continuing as they all come back to her, "what is even real anymore -- as though I ever knew..."

The words fade as she stops before a collection of tombstones. In her memories these names are a blur -- the forgotten dead who she never knew -- but here, and now, these names are fresh, recently carved, completely familiar. There's Buffy over there, a marble cherub offering protection to the fallen Slayer's grave, and Giles next to her. Even in hell, she guesses, old habits are hard to break -- the Watcher never did know how to not stand beside the blonde.

Oz's grave is next to Giles', unadorned and simplistic to the extreme. Geez -- symbolic much? She'd have thought that in death the guy'd finally splash out a little, be not so minimalistic. Guess his rationing skills weren't solely limited to the verbal aspects of life, after all.

Xander and Willow -- and she really doesn't want to see this -- are the crypt, their joint tomb a somewhat tasteful collection of granite and marble and scripted etchings. She averts her gaze and focuses on the empty -- but freshly dug -- grave waiting beside theirs.

It's for her.

No surprise there.

"Holy tears," she whispers, returning briefly to the song-that-she-doesn't-know, "they linger on."

"Aw, come on."

She turns as he drawls out a reply to Buffy's long ago statement of no-more-death and finds him grinning in the darkness.

"Just one more."

The script is easy enough to follow -- history and memory and nightmare all working together to bring about a perfect re-enactment -- and she screams on cue as he charges for her. There's the moment of anticipation -- is he really coming at her? -- and the moment of contact -- her legs and arms wrapping around his body as it collides into hers -- and then the moment of falling -- as entwined they hit the earth.

But there's no Buffy to pull him off her anymore. No Willow to stand there shrieking and no Xander trying to work up the courage to do something that will ultimately get his ass kicked. There's just her, and him, and after a split second of stationary the uneven grassy surface is causing them to roll.

She's never noticed an incline in this particular part of the cemetery but real or not, they're tumbling down a slight slope, alternating the all-important 'I'm-on-top' rights...

... and she's clinging to him, and it's fear, it's terror, it's heart-stopping, adrenaline-overdosing, horror as he offers her a wicked smile...

... and he's holding her, and it's passion, it's sex, it's heart-pounding, frisson-inducing, lust as she gasps his name...

... and she's dying, and it's sad, it's painful, it's heart-slowing, blood-draining, death as he drinks from her neck...

... and he's loving, and it's sweet, it's beautiful, it's heart-breaking, bitter-sweet, tenderness as he whispers her name...

... until they stop. And she was right -- there was no incline -- because they're lying where they fell and he's on top of her, their bodies so close that there's no way to tell where he ends and she begins. They're lying there, his eyes looking into hers, and her chest pressing against his with every breath, and their lips -- teeth! fangs! -- are so close it's almost a kiss.

"Holy tears," she recites softly, "they linger on."

"Just one," he answers and she smiles sadly.

"More," she finishes for him.

He shakes his head and his hand is touching her cheek. "Just one," he repeats. "Only one. Only you. Just you."

Her head tilts just enough to press into his caress and she closes her eyes as he kisses her. Softly.

"Gone like the broken words at your feet," she breathes when their lips finally part, "you're gone in the venom lips that kiss me sweetly."

"It hurts."

She opens her eyes and finds a tear on his cheek, the salty drop catching on the hard planes of his demonic visage. "No," she corrects him, splinters burning future cicatrices into her palm, "it kills."

They don't look at the stake she's pressing into his heart; they can feel it. No end to his body, no beginning to hers.

"I love you," he declares with sweet firmness and because this is a nightmare, because it's hell, she presses her mouth to his one final time and lets her lips trace an ingenuous reply.

"I love you too."

Then there's just dust, just air, just ash settling on the blood trickling from her neck. She lies there, in that freshly dug grave, her body still trembling from an orgasm that never really happened, and the gravestones of Sunnydale watch without comment as she cries silently.

"Gone like a frightened bird into the sky. Won't you take everything I ever had and leave me to die as I cry holy tears."

Returning to hell, she thinks, is easy.

"They linger on, holding you, my love..."

It's leaving hell that's hard.

"... forever gone."

  


* * *

  


When did they close the curtains?

Blinking sleepily she stares at the drawn drapes, the barest sliver of dawn stealing from behind its edges. Gossamer memories, like trembling butterfly-wings, flutter against her consciousness...

... the glass, cold as ice against her back... lips suckling at the juncture of her neck... flesh like marble, smooth like silk, sliding against hers... a throbbing heat coiling and uncoiling deep within her womb... fire between her thighs...

... she saw stars, she remembers then. Both outside the glass and behind her eyes. Flickering and shiny and pinpointed brilliance. Twinkle, twinkle, little star... not many men, she thinks, can give you the carpet of heaven both inside and out.

They'd closed the curtains, she decides, on their descent back to earth. Back to bed.

Speaking of -- she rolls over, the tangled sheets snaking further around her body, and stares at her companion. He's curled, like she, on the farthest side of the bed, the greatest expanse possible between their bodies. It's not a conscious act -- she knows this because they'd fallen asleep still entwined -- but rather a survival instinct that's been honed for much longer than last night's sudden intimacy.

In Sunnydale, only death courts at night.

She rolls again, this time out of the bed, and though it's tempting to take the sheet with her, she's spent more of the past twenty-four hours in Angel's presence naked than she has clothed. Realising the foolishness of modesty _now_ , she leaves it on the bed, covering said vampire, and pads quietly into the bathroom. The muscles in her legs ache with the movement and her fingernails flutter against her thighs, pain radiating from the bite marks there. Whoever said 'love hurts'? They were right.

Ablutions take almost no time -- she's getting her life back, yes, but the process is still just a little slow in some departments -- and it's not long before she's back in the main room. Sitting at the table she props a foot on a second chair, lacing her boots absently as she lets her eyes rove around the room. She'd packed yesterday -- before the burst of ridiculous sentimentality that convinced her to stay for one final night -- but if she's forgotten a stray sock or earring or canister of imported hair-spray, she wants to remember it now.

When she's finished dressing she drops her feet back to the ground, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table surface, fingers steepled near her chin. Ten days. Thirteen if she takes it back to when she first found Angel chained in the Bronze, fourteen if she counts from the moment she wished.

Two weeks. Of hell, from hell, in hell.

Where does she go from here? To purgatory? Heaven? _Earth_?

"Wherever I go," she whispers into the quiet room, eyes drifting towards the vampire asleep in their bed, "it won't be via a wish."

Wishing, after all, can change things: but it doesn't make them better.

She sighs and unchains her fingers as she reaches for the lone shopping bag still resting on the table next to her handbag. Inside, wrapped in shiny foil paper, is a rectangular present. She holds it silently, eyes decimating the wrapping and memory offering knowledge of its contents.

She wonders if Angel will get the symbolism. She thinks there's a good chance he won't, but hopes on an even greater one that he will. Not terrific odds, but she's willing to bank on them anyway. After all, the ending of the movie is pretty damn clear -- they're no longer together. Whitney Houston has gone one way, to carry on with her career, and Kevin Costner has gone the other, to do the same. Love, and its applicable entanglements, doesn't survive a duty of protection -- that's the moral of the movie after all.

She's hoping that will be the moral of her time spent with Angel too.

Sighing, she stares at the present, at the wrapped movie with its tasteful bow. It's probably one of the stupidest things she's ever bought, but when compared to everything that's happened between her and Angel in the past fortnight, buying him a Christmas present -- a copy of 'The Bodyguard' no less -- isn't ranking too high on her foolishness-list. On the you're-probably-crazy-list, however, it's right up there with the fashion flashback to leg-warmer's her sixth-grade-self had had.

Now _that_ was a faux-pas of cosmic proportions.

Placing the gift on the table she reaches into her handbag, removing her wallet, and then retrieves the complimentary hotel stationery and pen she'd left there earlier.

Minutes pass as she sits there, searching for something to say. It's not like Angel wouldn't _know_ who the present is from, but it feels wrong to say nothing. A lot's happened in thirteen days -- surely she has some pearl-of-wisdom, profound-and-epiphany-like statement to leave him with.

And she _is_ leaving him. She's going to her father's -- blackmail or not, the guy is her Daddy, and it _is_ Christmas Day, and most importantly, there's still a few papers that need signing -- and then tomorrow she's out of this town. A designer bat, straight out of hell.

When she gets up and uses the phone to call the lobby for a bellhop, the paper is still blank. And a couple of minutes after that, when she lets the attendant in before he can knock -- and wake Angel -- it's still freshly unmarked.

She holds the door open as the man carries her bags to the elevator and then asks him to wait for a moment as she remains in the room. The guy nods, a little smirk on his lips, and she's sure her stay in this hotel has become immortal gossip fodder.

A young woman and a young man -- no wedding rings or signs of honeymoon-itis -- holed up in the one room for ten days. With regular deliveries of blood and constantly drawn curtains. The staff's probably started a betting pool on them either having an illicit affair or being weird-ass fetishists. More than likely, the highest bid is going to a combination of both.

She shakes her head at the thought -- if they're betting on her for fun, they _really_ need to get a life -- and slowly straightens from her leaning position against the closed door. With fingers that for once aren't trembling, she gathers her handbag from the table, a smile curling at her lips as she finally thinks of something to say.

The six simple words are scrawled on the piece of paper -- 'Merry Christmas, Angel. Get a life.' -- the bank check she'd had drawn yesterday tucked inside as she folds it and leaves it on the present. She's paying him more -- _way_ more -- then they'd originally agreed, but she thinks that's appropriate. This way, she reminds herself, there will be no future doubt -- her debt to Angel has been paid in full.

She remembers the sex and lets her lips quirk into a wry expression. Definitely paid in full.

And there's no way the vampire can now claim that she hasn't given him 'permission' or some such crap to not be in her life anymore. With three words that are more commonly used as an insult than anything else -- get a life -- she's set him, and therefore herself, free. No future doubt, she repeats.

She reshoulders her handbag and brushes a swatch of hair behind her ear as she doesn't stand next to the bed and doesn't stare longingly at the man who'd given her stars only hours before. She doesn't whisper an aching 'I-love-you'-ridden goodbye to his sleeping figure as she heads to the door either. That would be... foolish? Wrong? Improper somehow? Regardless, she's not going to do it.

She slips into the hallway, the door shutting with a soft snick behind her, and promptly changes her mind.

"Goodbye, Angel," she whispers to the closed door, cheek momentarily resting against polished wood as the marks on her thigh throb, "I love you."

And with that said, she leaves the hotel. Leaves Angel. Leaves hell.

It's not as hard as she thought it would be.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/420305.html>
> 
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